I’m at my desk staring at my son’s wallet, a standard black leather model, overstuffed, misshapen and frayed, fringed with strands like a cowboy jacket. I tried to get Zach to upgrade, even had a new one set aside. But he preferred his old one out of habit and an innate frugality that I suspect is one of the legacies I passed to him.

I know what’s inside: three $100 bills and another $140 in twenties and tens. I sometimes got on his case for carrying so much money. He thought my concerns were overblown, even when one of the bar-based poker games he frequented in Madison, Wis., got held up at gunpoint. (He was thankfully not playing that night.)

My wife and I agreed that he had the risk profile of a teenager — that his frontal cortex wiring was only slowly catching up with his 26 years.

Inside with the cash is his first and only credit card, a Visa from our local bank. I have already sent in a request to have it canceled. Underneath the credit card is his insurance card from work, probably still marked with the fingerprints of the emergency room staffer who needed it.