By the clock

This morning on my list of weekend things to do is to align all of the clocks in my house to the same time. The clock chaos in my house is really starting to annoy me. Already, I’m anticipating how relieved I will feel when the clocks in my house all tell exactly the same time. This feeling of genuine anticipation is quirky, I know.

The funniest thing about this quirk is realizing that it’s not mine alone. My grandfather on my mother’s side who died about ten years ago also had issues with clocks. My grandfather filled his house with clocks, and always made sure they read exactly the same time. He even built my grandmother a beautiful tall grandfather clock that required elaborate steps to set the time. Nevertheless, you could set your watch by the sound of the grandfather clock’s chimes.

My grandfather eventually moved out of the house after my grandmother died in the late 80s, splitting his time and almost all of his clocks between Florida and Ashtabula. Because the grandfather clock was too heavy to accommodate in his new homes, it remained in the corner when my mom, my brother and I moved in shortly after he left. The process of setting the grandfather clock was so tedious that no one in my family ever bothered. Even as I left for college a year later in 1991 and time marched on, the grandfather clock itself sat silent with the hour and minute hands fixed at 2:15.

The summer of 1994 was a bad one for my family. While I was working overseas in Mexico, I was diagnosed with appendicitis and had my appendix removed in a rural clinic. Some 48 hours later, I was on a plane back to Ohio to recuperate in my mother’s house. At nearly the same time, my grandfather, who suffered a massive stroke in late spring, was making a similar journey to my mother’s house. When we finally met in my mom’s living room, he in the light blue corduroy lazy boy chair and me on our plaid tweed couch, we had both seen better days.

While my recovery from appendicitis was relatively quick, my grandfather’s progress was slow. Despite months in physical therapy, his speech was limited to a few odd words. The paralysis on his left side also made it difficult for him to get around. Most days he seemed to sit content in front of the TV in baggy sweats with his Velcro tennis shoes propped up in the lazy boy. Eventually, by the end of the summer and his progress wasn’t rapidly improving, I decided to switch colleges to live at home and to help take care of him in my family’s home.

My grandfather wasn't one to give up completely though, and sometime after Christmas and the new year, my mom and I noticed that the daily speech and physical therapy sessions were finally starting to pay off. There was the first day we went to dinner at his favorite diner and he finished the meal without fumbling with his fork. Soon after that, he emerged from his bedroom wearing khakis with his belt up high on his waist like old times. But it wasn’t until the day that my grandfather decided that he’d had enough of the clock situation in my mom’s house that I knew that he was officially on the mend.

It started one morning after I returned home from the university. As I swung the car into the driveway, I could see my grandfather through the picture windows of our dining room staring at the grandfather clock. In less time than it took for the screen door to close and for me to walk a few steps into the dining room, my grandfather had sprung into action.

Pointing at the grandfather clock, in a crackly voice, he hummed the tune that the clock should make when properly wound-up. He led me into the living room, pointing first at the clock on our VCR that blinked an angry white 12:00 and then at a secretary clock above it, which coincidentally had stopped not too long after noon. Then, he led me down the hall to his bedroom where he picked up his alarm clock with green extra large numbers that was an hour behind after daylight savings time changes. He muttered the words over and over again, “It’s time. It’s time. It’s time.”

In what I thought was my grandfather’s final act on a theme that was now increasingly becoming clear, he led me back to the kitchen where my mom’s Home Sweet Home clock above the sink read 10:45 more or less, the only functioning clock in the house or so I guessed out loud. My grandfather responded with a defiant wave. He picked up the cordless phone from beside the refrigerator and I watched for the first time since the stroke as he punched numbers into the phone and then held it up to my ear. On the other line, in a robotic voice of a woman overly familiar with punctuation, I heard: “The time is now. Ten. Thirty. One inthemorning.”

During the hour before we left for lunch, I helped my grandfather to start up the grandfather clock and reset every clock in the house to tell the same time as the voice. My grandfather grinned triumphantly from where he stood, staring at the grandfather clock as it chimed 11:30. The time and the message the clocks in my mom's house told from that day on was that my grandfather was back to his old self.

And even though it’s been more than twelve years since the day the clocks assumed their order in my mother’s house and ten years since my grandfather passed away, I know that in spirit, he'll be just as excited about the prospect of my morning chore as I am. The time, according to my atomic clock is now. Nine. Forty. Five inthemorning.

Comments

[mom]

And to add to your blog, the grandfather clock now sits in our new home permanenty set at 8:19. Oh Gramps where are you when I need you????

[April]

My grandfather always had a 'grandfather clock' in his home too, he repaired it many times on his own from techniques he learned from his father, who was a dutch watchmaker. I missed hearing the chimes I always heard growing up going to his house, so I finally bought my own grandfather clock with the winchester chime too.