The Watch

As I've done my whole life, I put on my watch every morning.  It doesn't track my health, ping with texts, display email, tell me the date and day, or connect to my phone. It doesn't have a battery, digital display, or a delicate band. The second-hand quietly sweeps clockwise every minute past 3, 6, 9, 12, as the big and little hands reliably declare the minute and hour. None of this happens, though, without a daily winding of the gold knob on the side. It's worked for decades without any repairs.

Long before it came to my wrist, it was on his wrist. I remember seeing it there every single day when he went to work, when he came home, when he read the San Francisco Chronicle at the table, when he drove the car, and when he worked in the yard.

It was a fixture. He was a fixture.

It never crossed my mind that his watch would one day be on my wrist.
It never crossed my mind that one day he would be gone.

I always thought there would be time to ask about his childhood in the orphanage, to ask about his time in the military, to ask about his time at USC, to ask about everything. Time. I always thought there would be more time for questions.

I'd found it in her desk when I cleaned out the condo. The enormous Danish roll top desk was gorgeous. I muttered to myself that it was a crazy expense she didn't have to make, but she did anyway. Amongst the many papers, pens, paper clips, and pencils it was waiting to be found in an old plastic bag. At first I was indignant. Why did she leave it in here like this? It seemed so cold, so uncaring to leave it with the rubber bands and staples. It went into the "Take home with me" pile, but the same thing happened at my house. I really didn't know what to do with it so for a few years it just sat in my dresser drawer. I didn't think it was right for me to use it. I needed to protect it, protect him, keep his memory in the drawer.

One day a couple of years ago, for absolutely no particular reason, I decided to wear it. I took off my cute little watch and put on the much bigger, round, brown, old relic. When I wound it up, it still kept time. At first it felt strange to have it on my wrist, but quickly it became a grounding fixture for me. Just as he had been. Just as he continues to be.

Since he last wore his watch my life has changed in profound ways. Even as the second-hand has quietly swept past 3, 6, 9, 12 over and over, time has stood still --- like it did on this day seventeen years ago. The day my Dad died.

I always thought there would be more time. I still think he should be here. His watch tells me every single minute that he was here and continues with me, regardless of space and time. I'm still on the clock with regrets for time wasted when he was alive and with a long list of new questions for him. But, they will have to wait. Wait for another kind of time, for eternal time when, to be honest, the questions will no longer matter at all.