Day 37 My Dad's Watch

I’ve been laid up in bed for three days with a headache.  Not just a normal headache but an 8.5 on a scale of 1-10 headache.  They’re not migraines, sinus or cluster headaches.  They’re the type of headaches doctors hate because they can’t categorize and treat.  My current doctor (neurologist) has been content to treat it with muscle relaxants that don’t work.  It was a preventative measure but when they accelerate through the roof, I can safely say, they don’t work. But today I felt good enough to shower and get out of the house.  I’ve been wanting to get my watch fixed and this seemed a perfect non-exhausting chore to get done.  It was my dad’s watch.  I took it off his arm the morning he died and placed it in the hospital bag where his clothes still lay to this day.  It’s been 13 years this month that I let him go to the spirits.

I pulled his watch out several years ago and just had it on top of my dresser.  I’m not sure why, it wasn’t like a trophy but maybe just a little reminder of dad.  I would wear it occasionally as it stopped working at some point.  I would jokingly say, “It’s dead, just like my dad.”  I thought it was a bit funny.  I knew I was throwing that out there for shock value and some people got it and some felt uncomfortable.  Good.  For some weird reason, I thought that was a good thing.  Shake things up.  You couldn’t shake the watch, no, it was dead.  But today I was going to get it fixed if nothing else, to quit saying that stupid joke.

I pulled into the parking lot and of course it was deserted.  Not much traffic for clock shops these days.  I walk in and ask if she can fix my watch.  I sit down and wait as she whisks off to her little watch department.  After 10 minutes I start to wonder how broke it is.
“It can’t be fixed sir.  Not with a new battery.  The old battery must have leaked inside and it killed the rest of the watch.” She offered in her slight Russian accent.

“Oh it was my dad’s watch anyway.”  I don’t know why I said that.

“I’m sorry, you don’t owe me anything”.  She was polite and handed me the watch with both hands.  I thanked her, put it on and walked out of the shop.  I was sad.  I’m not sure why.  The battery leaked out its stuff just like the cancer leaked out its toxin into my dad, killing him too.  I don’t know why I thought it would be a simple fix, I just did.  I think being laid up for three days has me feeling melancholy and I miss my dad all of a sudden.  I just wanted him to be fixed.  He was diagnosed on a January 8^th and dead the following January 27^th.  He didn’t even last 3 weeks.  It was grace in the end that he suffered for such a short moment.  I cradled him in my arms for his last hours and witnessed his breathing stopping like a second hand clicking, forward, then backward, forward, stop, backward, stop, forward, stop, stop, stop.

Time was stopped and I wanted him to breathe again.  “Dad? Dad? No, no, not now, it not’s alright.  You can’t go now. We’re not done.”  An avalanche of feelings cascaded and I couldn’t pick one to identify with.  It was an endgame of emotions.  I laid him down on his bed and laid my head on his chest hoping to hear a tick-tick of a heart beat but there was none.  Where I laid my head I could feel an unnatural coolness spreading and I knew with certainty that he was truly gone.  I thought I would get to hear some last words.  I thought I would feel a hug and a shagging on my hair.  But he was too far gone and the only thing alive was my mind and the words I wanted to say and the words I wanted to hear.  Like the watch, I would never be allowed to spend another second with him.

1.  I'm grateful I have my dad's watch to wear either way
2.  I'm grateful my headache is at a level 2 right now.
3.  I'm grateful that I'm sober today.