The last time I was visiting Mom, she handed me a small plastic sandwich bag. “This is stuff I cleaned off your father’s dresser. Do you want any of it?” I studied the bag, turning it over in my hand. Seriously? I squinted through the plastic, my mind flipping back and forth between: Of course I want it! and Why would I want any of this?

When my son was little, he would pick up all sorts of remnants that he found on the floor. If we walked into a fabric or craft store, he would gather balls of thread that had fallen off the frayed edges of material on the bolt, pieces of silk flowers that were lying on the floor, buttons that had fallen off clothing. His pockets were never empty, and I had to be careful to check every single pocket on laundry day.

The bag my mother handed me was much like the contents of my young son’s pockets—remnants of a life of gathering. The bag contained pieces of unrelated objects collected on the daily journey and deposited into a common container on the top of Dad’s dresser. All they had in common was the container in which they ended up. And the man who had gathered them.

The bag held washers, screws, broken things, a bunch of oddball items. I sat down on the floor and untied the knot at the top of the bag. I stirred the contents with my finger, revealing all of the treasures that Dad had felt it necessary to keep. The metal spring from a wooden clothespin. A ring that I had made by winding yellow electrical wire around itself. Around and around and around. A firecracker with an old, frayed fuse, but no doubt just as explosive as ever. Two broken angel wings, clearly from two different angels.

No. Dad was not an angel wings kind of man. Two broken eagle wings, clearly from two different eagles. But with a lack context, they are the wings of angels in my mind. Under the circumstances and left to my interpretatin, angels are more appropriate.

Why did Dad collect these items, number one, and save them all, number two? What was it about the yellow wire ring? The firecracker? The angel wings?

This bag might seem to be full of useless items, some broken or seemingly meaningless. But they had meaning to Dad. He saved them all for a reason. Perhaps he intended to glue the wings back on the angels. Find the wooden parts of the clothespin. Set off the one remaining firecracker. Or maybe he was waiting to see how someone else might piece together the remnants he gathered up along his way.