The Broken Watch

     "I wonder what's in that big box under the tree," I asked, then glanced at my mom and dad just in time to see them exchange a smile.
     "It's a shoe shine kit." said Daddy. "Mother and I thought it was about time for you to get a job so we bought you a shoe shine kit for Christmas. After you open it you can go to work. I hear they are getting up to a quarter a pair down at the bus station."
     "Oh Daddy!" I exclaimed, making sure my exasperation came through. But by the time Christmas came I was almost convinced that it was a shoe shine kit and I would be expected to go right to work. You can imagine my delight when I opened the big box to find a smaller box wrapped inside it. I tore into that one only to find a smaller one inside that one. This continued in graduated sizes until I came to a little box in the center of it all and unwrapped my new Elgin watch. I was so proud of that watch (and not just a little relieved that it wasn't a shoe shine kit). It was just like my mother's watch that Daddy had given her the year before.
     "...sixteen jewels and 14 carrot gold with a gold stretch band!" said Daddy proudly, as he put it on my wrist. "It's just like your mother's and should last you a lifetime if you take care of it."
     I was eight years old and it felt good to be trusted with something so precious. I wore it every day through elementary school, high school and college and even after I was married.  Finally in my late twenties my watched stopped and I couldn't get it to run again.  I took it to a jeweler and he pronounced it hopelessly dead. He told me that he could no longer get parts for it. I cried privately then bought a cheap ten dollar watch to replace it. I couldn't help thinking, I'll never get another good watch because Ted is just a poor Airman!
     The years passed and when Mother died, Daddy gave me her watch. "She wanted you to have it, even though it doesn't run any more. Maybe someday you can get it fixed." he added. By then my Elgin had been lost.
     I took it to a jeweler and received the same depressing diagnoses that had been given about mine...no parts available.  I put Mother's broken watch in my jewelry box and was sad that I couldn't use it.
     Years went by and my little daughter, Jennifer began to play dress up.  She went into my jewelry box and put on the watch along with  her finery. I know this only because she confessed it later. She lost the watch that day and months passed before I missed it. We searched the house in vain and finally gave up on it.
     A couple years later a friend joined me one day to help me with my spring cleaning. We were moving appliances to clean under them when she spied that glittered beneath the stove. "Look, I found a watch!" she exclaimed. I cleaned it up and happily returned it to my jewelry box where it lay forgotten unless I saw it  when I dug around for jewelry.
      Sometime later we were on our way to school one morning and Jennifer was shaking her pencil box in the back seat, just to make noise. I looked at it and asked, "What in the world do you have in that box?" She said, "Treasure!" I said, "Let me see it." She handed it over with what I thought was a sheepish look on her face and when I opened it I understood why.  There was my Mother's watch!  As you can imagine, I was pretty upset with her and began to threaten that if she ever touched that watch again... Suddenly Ted interrupted me and said, "Let me see that watch." I gave it to him and he rubbed it between his fingers as he drove the car, then put it into his pocket. "I think I'll take it back to a jeweler. Surely technology has come far enough to fix this watch by now." Once again, I let it go and forgot about it.
     A couple weeks later Ted came in and put it on my wrist. It began faithfully ticking away the time of my life.
     Now far be it from me to moralize such a thing (wink, wink) but the watch has become a symbol for me. It was something precious that I treated carelessly. It is something that is "numbering" my days that I had disregarded. It is a reminder of my mother and all the time she gave to me and of my dad and my husband who faithfully provided for me for so many years of their lives...and I had thrown it into a box and lost it over and over again.
     Symbols are important. They remind us of the things we should value and reveal to us how little we do value them.  We forget so easily what we owe to others. Maybe it's us that is broken.
    
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