My Father’s Watch

I cried this morning. Not because I was depressed. Far from it.

The reason is something that I knew was coming. I was prepared. But until you experience something, preparation is just a word on a page.
The tears were for the death of my parents. Eight months apart last year. Mum first, Dad second. Was it the memory of Mum in hospital with tubes and lines feeding out of her body? Was it the knowledge that her organs were shutting down? Was it the sanitised language used by the doctors to prepare us?
Or was it my Father’s gradual descent into loneliness sparked off by her last breath? His dementia and tightening grip on my arm in the late hours of his last few nights.

No.

The tears were the distance between myself and my parents now. A connection of love between us which feels like a long optic cable upon which travels our emotions.
So I sat in my shed this morning, in one of their old lounge room chairs and looked at my Dad’s watch on my left hand. A watch that still works and guides me in my life. It keeps me on time and, in someways, connected.

Some tears are good.