Inherited Time

It was perhaps the most ordinary-looking watch ever. A black face. Three golden hands. The markings were not numbers but dashes, as if writing numbers would make it too distinct, something it was trying hard not to be. At the top and bottom were three golden lines: two that ran the length of the watch, and a third shorter one, set slightly inward-the one at the top stopping toward the right, the one at the bottom toward the left.

I try hard to, but cannot recall exactly how the watch came to me. This was long before smartwatches. There were a bunch of working watches in our household, one for each of the four of us, and the ones with active batteries were simply used by whoever found them first.

This one was certainly my father's. I remember because of its dark colors and thick, rather manly band, unlike the delicate ones my mother wore.

Before he left, my father had been waiting for a job for a long time. Only fragments remain, but I remember him hanging up the phone with a little excitement: he had finally lined up his next job. I had his watch. He had a fancier one-metal, digital, more appropriate for work.

He had been gone for a few days when I started tenth grade after summer vacation.

It was a regular school day. When I returned on the bus, I noticed my cousin, who had just graduated from high school, waiting at the stop where I would normally get off. We had recently added a second stop, but when I saw her, I got off.

I had a big smile on my face when I saw her. She did not.

At fourteen, facing real tragedy for the first time in my life, I should have known something was terribly wrong. She held me close.

She gave me the worst news of my life: my father, who had left a few days earlier, had died.

During the few minutes between the bus stop and home, I kept thinking: How could she know? Someone had made a mistake somewhere. This couldn't really have happened. There had to be some other explanation.

Nothing made sense. Why would he die now? He had his bad habits, but he had finally quit smoking after so many years of trying. He had just found a job.

The next few days are a blur.

I would later learn that he had traveled there for the job and was undergoing medical clearance, all of which had apparently been going well. Another recruit who was joining with him was sharing his room. His roommate saw him sleeping that morning and thought it was unusual. A few hours later, when he returned, he knew it was much worse than unusual.

I would learn, almost in slow motion, how my mother and brother had found out.

It was a few days before I noticed anything and realized that his watch was still on my wrist.

Once I did, it felt like a hand holding me, carrying me through that time. The fourteen-year-old me found a strange reassurance in it.

I would not take it off for anything.

These watches were not waterproof. We took them off to shower. But I couldn't. Somehow, the watch was persistent, stubborn, and strong. It endured the showers and the sweat and everything else I put it through.

It felt heavy on my wrist. Comforting.

I would look at it and feel something strange-a briefness and a comfort at the same time. Strangers might wonder why a young girl was wearing such an old, ordinary watch. The people closest to me knew why.

The hands kept moving.

The time on the watch seemed to painfully count both the moments of his death and the time since.

Slowly, the strap began to wear from all the years of wearing it, the showers, the sweat. When it was nearly beaten, I replaced the strap. The dial remained the same. Over the years, even the glass covering began to scratch.

But I could still see the time just fine.

For such a small object, it carried so much: weight, time, inheritance.

After a few years, as grief transitioned into something quieter, the watch stopped feeling like inheritance. It began to feel like time he had given me.

Time without him. Time to survive him.

Time to notice how brief everything is.

He missed so much-graduations, weddings, grandchildren, the multiplication of his love through people he never got to meet. Somehow, it feels as though the watch witnessed some of it for him.

Now, at forty-five, I am the age he was when he died. I hope I inherited time, too.

I still have the dial. Occasionally, I find it in the drawer of lost things. I pick it up.

It still brings me comfort, love, joy.

And, hopefully, time.