Yesterday my mom found a box in her closet that turned out to have a number of items from a very long time ago.

among the items was my father's sergeant's pins, and a couple of report cards of mine from when I was in junior high school.

The report cards showed that I was highly creative, struggling socially, and had the worst handwriting ever, so I guess not much has changed.

But the pins . . . I don't know what I feel about them. For most of my life I had almost no reminders of my dad, so it feels like I found a piece of my past, but the sadness about why I don't have him in my life has also been brought to the surface.

Ah, well.