Jenny Grosvenor

“I need to leave so you know you can survive on your own,” my dad used to say. It was the summer of 1994. Although a former Air Force pilot, my dad feared flying and would train all the way from Florida to Vermont to assist with my four children—aged four, three, almost two, and two months. We lived atop Bolton Mountain. My husband had died in the notorious Huntington Gorge—by suicide.

My dad—Paca, as the kids called him—would come stay with us for two weeks or so at a time, helping with my babies as he’d never done with me: changing diapers, making formula, doing laundry, playing games, and endlessly pushing children on swings. Once all were tucked in beds and cribs, Dad and I sipped brandy into the night, ruminating over our tragedies. My dad’s mom, Lucia, died when he was nine—by suicide. His Grandpa Piatt—a railroad conductor from London, Ohio—helped raise him.

When time for Dad to go, I’d pack all four into car seats for the drive off the mountaintop. The minute we’d pull into the Waterbury station, Paca would dole out pennies to the three oldest. Alex and Olivia would scamper over to the tracks, Luke toddling behind, baby Hunter watching on from my arms, to place their coins on the rails. My dad would hug us all with sad eyes before climbing aboard. Once the caboose had passed, his fatherless grandchildren would dart over to the tracks to find their treasures. On the drive home, those pieces of flattened copper tucked in tiny palms—tokens of survival—brought comfort. They still do.

My dad is gone just over a year now. This past Father’s Day, my children—now in their late twenties—planned an outing. After our trip to the Huntington Gorge, en route to their dad’s grave in Waitsfield, we survivors of our own locomotive weight—and freight—stopped at that same station to honor Paca by placing pennies on the track. I wonder who will find them.