My Father the Clock Collector

 

My father was a clock collector.

 

We had every kind of clock you could imagine—grandfather clocks, grandmother clocks, mantel clocks, cuckoo clocks, French Provincial clocks, and even the occasional alarm clock. Friends counted them once, though I can't remember the number. It was somewhere in the 40s.

 

On my sixth birthday, when everyone else got a toy or a doll, I got a grandmother
clock. It's hanging in my kitchen now and if I turn it around, I see the date and an inscription from my father.

 

Even today, friends reminisce about coming to our house. We laugh because no two clocks ever told exactly the same time. Then, on the hour, the house would come alive. Bongs, chimes, cuckoos, and melodies echoed through every room for several minutes. Our family slept right through it - our overnight guests, on the other hand, usually had a very different experience.

 

The bongs always seemed to happen just as a television show was ending. Back then there was no pause button or rewind, so if someone spoke during the final scene...well, you just missed it.

 

Every Sunday evening my father made his rounds, winding each clock by hand. I became his little sidekick, carrying all the winding keys as we went from room to room. 

One day he told me something I've never forgotten.

 

"Hold the clock while you wind it. Talk to it. Thank it for telling the time every day."

It probably sounded a little silly to anyone listening.

 

But I did.

 

Today, I have several of his clocks in my own home. Every Sunday, I open the little glass doors, gently wind each one, (because that's the way I was taught), hold it for a moment, and thank it for working so hard all week.

 

Funny how certain memories stay with us.

 

And how, years later, we find ourselves repeating the comforting rituals of the people who loved us first. Time passes. Love doesn't.