Amid the chaotic masses of holiday glitter and wrinkled wrapping paper, a staple to my siblings and my stocking collection — next to gift cards and new toothbrushes — were lottery tickets. Two or three of them sprinkled our holiday cheer with hopes of “winning it big”, yet after growing accustomed to loss in our youth, the cards reflected tradition rather than success. Perhaps the most successful year my brother took the envious prize of 60 dollars home, but usually our accounts were only peppered with single digit numbers, leaving my father’s leather wallet a little looser than before.
Despite this, my father still managed to mirror the enticing glitter of those little cards with hints of hope. I’d make my way upstairs into my room and see an extra three placed on my bed. He’d quote George Bailey’s cheerful chant of “winning a million bucks!” before we began our frantic scratching contest, shedding the silver glitter on the dining room table, much to my mother’s dismay.
We’d punctuate our excitement of winning, regardless of whether it was one dollar or 20. Every time we’d hover our pennies above these cards, though knowing the odds were most definitely not in our favor, the beat of hope pushed us on. Sometimes he bought us powerball tickets, calling us together Sunday morning to check if any of our numbers matched. My brother would sometimes roll his eyes, telling him that going downstairs to retrieve his ticket was a bigger waste of time than my father’s own purchase of it.
My dad was not a gambling man. He was just hopeful — the tickets tokens of his cheerful confidence. My dad had spent his life working. He quit community college and worked as a delivery truck operator. After tiring of that, he went back to a small Catholic school in Michigan. He studied chemistry and had dreams of becoming a professor until the man distributing credentials refused to give my father his. He moved to California and worked in a lab until he and my mother realized that the rising prices of the west coast life might not be the most financially safe to raise a child, or 3. He took classes while working as she raised my brother, sister, and I. He’d work on his sick days, he’d take breaks in the bathroom, he’d stand for 14 hours while customers complained of insurance issues that he, a pharmacist, couldn’t resolve. My father was a worker, but as a kids we never knew how tired he was. He’d still chase us around the house in games of “Monster,” he’d teach us science lessons and how to catch baseballs. He laughed and laughed and that’s how I remember my dad. Working and laughing.
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One night over the last Christmas holiday, the four members of my immediate family and I came together in the communal kitchen space and spoke of times past. After an hour and a half of talking my brother and I slid down to the linoleum wood, laughing about jingles we made up as kids, my younger sister’s obsession with Time Magazines, and how fast the subway of life was traveling. My dad nodded, his blue eyes tired. “I had all of these plans. Work overtime and work weekends and then I could maybe buy a boat and take the kids fishing and I turn around and suddenly they’re 20 and you’re in the same position you were before.” He trailed off, removing his glasses to massage his temples.
I couldn’t help but want to feed into his hopefulness. I wanted to win not for myself, but to have the heaviness of a man who had worked all of his life finally lifted. I dreamed of staring in disbelief at the winning ticket, checking and rechecking the numbers, hands beginning to quiver, and trying to maintain a level of calm — “Dad, DAD… check this, is this right?” I dreamed of him weeping and laughing, of his blue eyes looking less tired. But we never won. Every ticket that didn’t hold a prize was another mark of the unsuccessful attempts to keep up with the succession of time.
Yet, Dad would never show his dissatisfaction. He would simply collect the lost cards, quietly, still double and triple check to see that we hadn’t missed numbers, re-scratching their scratched surfaces, writing down the number on a pale yellow piece of paper. He’d tap, tap, tap the cards, shaking their specs to the napkin beneath, and set them aside. An assembly line of veiled disappointment. The lost cards would sit as his desk for the next few days, as if time would reveal the impossibility of hope.
Later, we’d see their glittery remains tucked into the sides of the waste basket, hidden under napkins and banana peels, tossed aside like they had meant nothing at all.
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This article originally appeared on Medium
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