I have never rented a safe deposit box in a bank. Though when I was thirteen my father read a book about money management and bought his four children green metal boxes in which to house valuables. It had folders inside with the usual tabs... bills, receipts, insurance. As a matter of fact he would be tickled to know that while I gave up on the box, there is still the folder marked Important Papers in my roll top desk. Between its manila wings are birth certificates, car titles,
passports. The green box was protected by a one inch lock with a flimsy key. Surely that would make pilferers think twice. Not that I had anything more important in the seventies than the pass book for my savings account. I think I had a hundred dollars from babysitting gigs.
In high school I was assigned a locker. One of my frequent nightmares is that I have forgotten the combination. But back then it was part of my group's social setting, standing around arranging textbooks, flirting, and passing notes. We guarded our three number sequences, only entrusting them to the most trustworthy of our best friends.
As it happens I read a book about money management when my twins were thirteen, which encouraged me to contribute to their long term savings. Which I have. They keep their money online, in an invisible account that they manage with an app. The lock is their fingertip.
My father's message had staying power. There are things worth securing. My family. My dreams. Our marriage. The innocence of children. None of them seem to fit in a box with a lid, and there is no combination of numbers I can find that shields them from danger.
But it behooves me to unearth ways to shelter them from invisible, and visible dangers.
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."Matthew 6
