The Pocket Watch Peers Over Us
Down where I come from, there aren’t many more means to get what you need, except to bust your back for it. My Pa, now he was a back breaking hard worker, well you know what I mean. He would get up before dawn, and be at it till the the sun fell from the sky above. He liked to say, I’ll out work that old sphere of fire in the heavens above even if it kills me.
Well, it ultimately did. Pa went on last year, just before sunset, while bucking an old forty foot pine. He was 78 years old, he had no business trying to drop that tree. I remember the day Timmy, my middle brother found him out there, on the track side of the Renners place. Timmy came stumbling down the slope from that place, with something in his hand, shouting, “Pa’s hurt, Pa’s hurt!”
I spotted him first and I could see it was Pa’s antique Waltham pocket watch that Tim had. Daddy liked that gold pocket watch. He would say, My mother’s father gave that to me, the day I got hitched, and said, “time might fail you boy, but love never will.”
My Pa was a good man, he cared for us deeply, and he definitely loved my mother. We buried him the next Sunday, and every family member that knew him came from miles to show their respects. For some reason, which we don’t know to this day, Pa left me that old pocket watch. It still runs, and I keep it on the book shelf in my study. Time hasn’t stopped yet, and neither has our love.
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