Of My Father’s Watch

My Father’s Watch

My father had a watch, a Seiko Kinetic automatic watch, stainless steel with 17 jewels. You know the kind you don’t wind up, and as long as you wear it regularly, somehow it self-winds, and ticks on and on and on…. It came in a black velvet box with a warranty card that declared a lifetime guarantee, I have always wondered how long a life time guarantee lasts, whose lifetime do they mean when they say lifetime guarantee…….

My father had a watch a Seiko Kinetic; he wore it every day from the day he got it, a Christmas present from some duty-free shop at some airport somewhere. I do not know how much it cost but I am sure it wasn’t a price one sneezed at… He wore it so much that the skin beneath it was lighter toned than the rest of his arm. When I try to remember him, I remember him wearing that watch. He never did but  I can imagine him saying to me “Son, a gentleman must always know what time it is, you do what needs to be done, on time, when it needs to be done, in time, and then after,  you can do what you want with all the time you have left , but first you do what needs to be done…”

The only time he was without that watch, was when my little hands were throwing dust to dust and everyone was crying.

My father had a watch a Seiko Kinetic, he made me a promise that when I could tell the time like a grown-up he would get me one for my birthday. But death, the untimely visitor came knocking, knocking down even the best laid plans, just like that….. If he could have given me a last present he would have given me that watch for my birthday; I dont remember if he was the sort of man to give grand speeches, maybe I was simply too young to have really known him or had proper father to son talk but if he could he would have said

“My son, we have only life, love and time in this world, The Creator gave you life, you can find love all by yourself and as for time I didn’t start the clock, no one can turn it back, I cannot give it you, only this clock to watch it tick away……..”

I have a watch, a Seiko Kinetic, it used to be father’s now I have it and I watch it ticking. The hands of every watch, are clippers, trimming us away tick tock tick tock. The hands of time an illusion lulling us into believing we can tame time, control it even, but every second used is discarded,

rushing off

slipping from my palms,

through the gaps

in my fingers like a leaky jar…..

TIME

never stopping in this moment

 

What happens

to all the seconds

tipped into the bin of the past?

Discarded

then gathered up into a tapestry of memories and history……  

I have this watch, a Seiko Kinetic, I don’t know if they still make them like this because today marks the day I have watched it tick for 21 years, before that it was my father’s watch. I look at it and I ask myself how much time do we have, not how many hours or seconds in a day but how much time, do we have….

……The watch keeps on ticking and it doesn’t care how much time we think we have because in the end, it is never enough, it always runs out….. That’s what gives life meaning to know that time runs out…….

My father had this watch, this Seiko Kinetic, I have it now, I watch it tick and I make every moment count………….

~B