Recently the AC unit was replaced at our office; a very old unit it still chugged along but no longer efficient.  The new unit was relocated to the back of the building leaving a concrete pad on the side of the building. After the work was done and the unit hauled away, I walked by the pad and noticed a dark circle on the pad. I reached down to pick it up and found it was a nickel; an almost black discolored nickel.

I tried to rub away enough tarnish to see the date but it was not easy to read. Finally in the light I see it is stamped 1980.  I thought, not really so old for it looked like it had been there 100 years. Then I realized that although it did not seem that old it had been there forty years —- forty years just hiding under the AC unit as the world and time moved forward.

This nickel in it’s shiny new condition was cloaked from the light when Ronald Reagan was elected the 40th President of the United States, November 4,1980. There in 1981, when the AIDS virus was first identified. In 1982, when I met my husband of the past 37 years which was long before I ever set foot in this little town, it was there.

Unseen in 1985 when the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl exploded sending 8 tons of nuclear reactive material into the atmosphere.  It remained hidden in 1986 when the shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after launch.  There in 1988 when a PanAm 747 exploded from a terrorist bomb that sent it crashing  to the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland.

Concealed in 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down and in December when the Romanian uprising overthrew the Communist government just days before my youngest son was born at the University of WA Medical Center.

It had possibly lost some luster in 1991 but it made no movement as the Soviet Union broke up after President Gorbachev resigned.  In that same year my oldest son was nearly killed in a motorcycle accident.  In 1992 when Bill Clinton was elected president and when my middle son graduated high school just a few miles away it remained sheltered from sight. It was there one year later as the same son was wounded in Somalia during the Battle of Mogadishu, on October 3, 1993.

Fast forwarding through the rest of the 90’s – wars in Serbia, Croatia, and at home in Oklahoma City. OJ killed his wife and the president cheated on his.

When the world entered the new millennium this nickel was now 20 years old.  In 2000, I technically became the owner of this hidden coin as we purchased the building with it’s old AC and it’s hidden coin that remained safely beneath.

This nickel stayed in the dark through the darkest days of 9-11 in 2001. There as the younger Bush became president and we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan.   It remained as as dictators were ousted from power or died… Saddam, Arafat, Milosevic and many other men who’s hearts were set on evil.

In 2009 Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States.  In the middle of Obama’s years my world was rocked by my own personal tragedies as my youngest son was diagnosed with IBD, underwent 5 surgeries and spent weeks and months in the hospital and ICU after several life threatening events. Through all this, a nickel now tarnished and black lay hidden.

There have been many changes in the world in those 40 years.  I didn’t think this nickel was so very old but in the time it lay undiscovered under the AC unit it had aged and tarnished just as much as we had as we found our way through the last forty years.  As much as things changed they have stayed the same. There is still war and unrest in the world, people no matter how much they talk about peace can’t even make peace with their neighbors and fellow citizens. It seems there is a greater desire to be right than to find common ground.

I found a nickel and it spoke to me