My dad doesn’t know where his medal is. He doesn’t know where he kept it, or even if he still has it. He kept it in his old leather briefcase, and one day, that too was thrown away. He would toss items in his briefcase, preparing for a trip outstation; I remember him wearing his ubiquitous singlet and arranging his passport, his clothes, his papers.
I remember, one day, pointing out an old, worn leather wallet. It was brownish in colour and, when he opened it for me to see, empty of cash. There was a medal tucked snugly where the money should have been, still in its protective plastic cover. It was large, about an inch and a half across and very heavy.
My dad, way back then, told me he kept it with him always. The medal had the likeness of Pope Pius XII stamped on one side, and an image of St. Peter’s Basilica stamped on the other. it looked new, still wrapped up and clean, but its weight in my hand felt like the weight of ages. It was my uncle who bought and blessed that medal before handing it over to my dad; my uncle had gone to Rome to read Canon law way back then.
That silver medal has been on my mind for the past few days.
It was a stray thought, at times; I idly wondered where it was, wondering if I would see it again. Sometimes, when I flipped through the pages of a book I’m reading, the lack of a bookmark would remind me of that medal, as if it was significant, or as if what I was reading shared that significance. It was just so old school, so antiquated. I’ve been wondering if my uncle was a sedevacantist himself, but always my thoughts turned to that medal. It stood forth in my mind like a magnet for all the associative ‘whys’ in the world.
Strange obsessions.