My dad's watch stopped ticking August 11, 2011 at 7.40 am. I have been dreading this moment since I received the watch at the funeral home. For some reason, at the time, I expected it to stop ticking when he died. Childish, I know. Time did stop for him, and it sure did for me. For over a year, I checked it every day, to make sure it was still working. I needed to know it was still working. There was something comforting about it still working. I feared how I'd feel when it stopped. Afraid of the finality--this watch, that was on my father's wrist every day for years, the last time on December 27, 2009 as he went into the hospital--as long as the watch was ticking, I was still somehow connected to him. It is really hard to give this the right words. He was alive--the watch was working. There's an obvious representation there that I cannot see clearly, meaning I can't forge the words to really talk about it with anyone. As long as the watch worked, I had some working, pulsing, thing that worked while he was alive. I checked it every day for over a year. Over a year and a half.
Very recently, I decided it would work forever (yet another Childish moment), so I brought it to the jeweler to take some links off the bracelet so I could wear it. I wore it for a few days, but it distracted me. It reminded me of all the times I'd seen him wear it, and too, when I saw it on my wrist was reminded why I had it. I took it off that afternoon, and put it in my jewelry box. But it still worked, so that was something, right?
Yesterday I picked up the watch after the realization a few weeks ago. I was so convinced it would be working. I had to double check the time. I didn't think it was 7.40 am. My heart believed the watch knew better. For a split second, I was ready to believe it was 7.40. Why not? It *was* morning. It *was* a Thursday. Why not?
Silly girl. It's 11.30, near noon. You woke up at 7.40.
A sign? Was that a sign? I've had a few, and this wasn't one. Or, at least the universe was a week late. To the day, to the hour.
Why brush it off? Okay, it was a sign. But of what? I know my father's watching over me, is with me. Maybe some signs take time to reach us.
About Me
- Catherine
- In this blog I have created a haven, a place I allow my deepest emotions to go and sit. I can write easily about what I’ve accomplished. This biography I can recite in my sleep. But I’ve always written poetry and in diaries since I was a teenager. I continued to write poetry in my journals, and not until 2006 did I show them to anyone. I generally write every day, at the present in memoir form. I haven’t written poetry since my mother died in January, 2007. I didn’t write at all between her death and the death of my father three years later in January, 2010. On my father’s birthday in March, 2010, I began this blog, to honor my father and to help me grieve. But I also desperately needed to write, and this stream of conscious style emerged. I needed to find my organic voice.
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