What I found in my father's wallet

Yesterday, along with many other thoughtful tips, my friend Tricia suggested I go through my dad's wallet with him. I was out in the hospital grounds on a lunch break from my normal bedside vigil, and I'd called her to ask for advice on what to expect once he dies, since it's clear that very soon I'll become an executor. She said going through his wallet together could be a good way to learn about things like his bank accounts, etc.

When I got back to his room he was awake and alert so I took the opportunity right then. The most surprising things I found were in a little plastic case for cards which he said was where he kept his memberships. Tucked in amongst cards for the National Art Gallery and the Friends of the NAC Orchestra were two timeworn slips of paper.

One was his pledge as an engineer, which he would have signed when he graduated from university, the other an old Aztec saying he'd copied down from the wall of the Mexican pavilion at Expo '86.  "Why did you keep this?" I asked of the Aztec saying.  "Well they seemed like good words," he replied.  

Aztec Military Code:

The dignified man, he who respects his fatherland his family and himself is not made by pleasure and leisure, but by penance and fasting, knowledge and discipline 

Such were the words my father strove to live by.  I always knew he worked hard to be a "good" man, and I suppose that is why he felt compelled to hold those two pieces of paper so close to him.  But together they seemed too stern and serious to sum him up as a man.  Because he was also very kind kind and generous. "My philosophy is that God is Love" he said to me yesterday.  

That was yesterday. Today he is too tired to do anything like look through a wallet. He was awake in the morning but had become almost non verbal, only answering questions with an occasional word. Now he is sleeping soundly again.

His engineer's iron ring is still there on his pinky.