Enough

I read an interesting anecdote the other day.

It seems the author Joseph Heller was invited to an exclusive party on the east coast by a multimillionaire investor. One of the guests pointed out that the host had made more money in a day than Heller had ever made on his very popular novel, Catch-22. Heller replied, “Yes, but I have something he will never have…enough.”

Now most of you are enlightened right now by two things…first, that I actually can read… and second, by the idea of having enough.

What is enough?

At Thanksgiving dinners in years past my grandmother would ask me if I “had enough.” When I was a kid the neighborhood boys would wrestle and fight in a vacant lot and eventually someone would get “enough” and go home. When my siblings and I would pick at each other and argue my Mom would threaten us with “enough is enough!”…

I think about a penny and wonder is it enough? I still remember when a penny would buy a piece of candy…it was enough. But when the price went to two cents and then five…it was inadequate.

Now I know that the penny has value. If you had two hundred, you could buy a cup of coffee; If you had two million, you could buy a decent car; if you had a hundred trillion of these you could pay off a handsome chunk of the national debt. It has value…but is it enough?

My dad had a funny habit: when he gave you a knife or scissors or any kind of cutting tool, it always had a penny taped to the box. He said that it was for payment… something about a knife had to be bought and not be given away or it would “cut” the relationship. When I was a boy I, thought it was odd, but I would dutifully admire the knife, use it to free the penny form the box and toss the copper back to my dad with a “thank you” for good measure.

As the years have passed, I am certain that my relationship with my father was strong enough to have survived if I had kept just one of those pennies...but I never did. It became sort of an inside joke, something that my brother, my sisters, my father and I knew, that no one else quite understood. It was our way of thanking each other and even though the penny on the box was insignificant…it was enough.

At my father’s funeral a couple of years ago, one of my brothers in law came up to me and pulled out a penny, and on it was a piece of tape with writing on it. It said: “Ray (my father’s name), Christmas 1999”. He thought it was a penny, a memory, and a keepsake…but I knew, it was enough.

Nowadays, when I stop by the cemetery where my father rests, I reflect, remember and sometimes cry. But when I go, I leave a penny on the head stone because it is my way of saying, I remember, and that is enough.

My wish for all of you this holiday season has nothing to do with turkey and dressing, Christmas presents, or New Year’s resolutions. I simply hope that you will have enough: Enough appreciation, enough love, enough joy…

enough.