When the Familiar Is Suddenly Transformed
I wrote not long ago about finding my father’s military dog tag, which I didn’t know even existed. I hung it around my neck immediately, and I was deeply moved, thinking how I never really had anything of my dad’s to wear or even have on my desk. I’m wearing the tag even now as I write, enjoying the idea that it touched his body and was under his uniform. Its embossed name and eight-digit number and three-digit alphanumeric ID are further proof of his identity in this world. I don’t know how long I’ll wear it, but probably for quite a while. Now it’s like an amulet or talisman, connecting me to my own father whom I never really got to know, and whose absence shaped a great deal of my life.
Putting the tag on is the newest part of my morning ritual. I notice during this season how cold it is when I put it on right next to my chest. It burns as if it’s hot, until my body temperature warms it up. I noticed at work yesterday that it felt almost wet somehow. It moves around a lot when I have a looser shirt and is much tighter against me when I’m wearing a T-shirt.
Sometimes I can’t feel the chain so I reach for it, a little anxious to make sure it’s still there and didn’t didn’t snap off. I imagine looking like the little boy in the The Polar Express when he lost the bell that Santa gave him.
In the Y locker room the last thing I take off is the dog tag and I tuck it in one of my shoes. It’s the first thing I put on when I come out of the shower. I really want to be asked about it by someone, maybe a veteran, and respond about how it’s my dad’s and I wear it in his honor and how he died when I was really young.
We imbue objects like this with meaning. I realize that it’s ultimately just a chunk of metal. Still, I love this thing, I’m grateful for it and the instant connection to my father. I feel it around my neck and I stand taller sometimes, almost as if I can feel his arm around me.
It has reminded me about the simplicity in making a daily list of what I’m grateful for, a practice I’ve gotten out of, even though the journal has morphed into something else definitely still related to gratitude. This dog tag is something I’m really grateful for. It probably got a little boring to write constantly about that first cup of coffee and having hot showers and food security and cars that work and an awesome wife and my gratitude for so many blessings and so much abundance. I did that for months. Maybe there’s a slight course correction somewhere in there for me.
I saw this the other day, from Edward Lindaman– “One of life’s most fulfilling moments occurs in the split-second when the familiar is suddenly transformed into the dazzling aura of the profoundly new.” There can be great joy and grounding in focusing gratitude on a single, simple and everyday thing.
