Two weeks ago or so, I picked up a watch I had not worn in many years. It's an old gold Seiko watch. It's a nice watch, but I had been given years ago a casual Rolex I wear day to day and rotate around some more casual watches, and had stopped wearing the Seiko.
The Seiko was a gift from my Mom and Dad when I was in school, a Christmas gift one year. Mom and Dad didn't have that much, and that gift was extravagant for them. Later, my Dad told me that they got it on a "super special," sort of like the old "K-Mart Blue Light" specials, and paid $40 for it. They had a nice note with it about a successful man needed a Seiko, rather than the Timex or Casio watches I was used to wearing.
I loved that watch.
I had that watch through law school, through my master's program, and after I left to go working in Montgomery. In Montgomery, I was coaching a Dixie League baseball team, and we had practice right after work. I changed clothes, and put my watch in my dress shoes, and my shoes on top of the car. I forgot I had done so, and took off down the road, forgetting, and seeing in the rear view mirror and my heart sank, thinking about what had happened. I turned around, and found the debris--I was going maybe 40mph when it hit--and my watch band was broken. But the watch was still working. I replaced the band (or maybe just the clasp), and kept wearing it.
Fast forward--as I said, I had not worn it in years, and a week or so before my Dad died, I saw it. Looked at it, and thought I'd try to replace the battery and see if it worked. I got a new battery, replaced it, and it started running. So I started wearing it for a change of pace.
When I got the news of my Dad dying, I was wearing the watch. I wore it to visitation, and the funeral. After the funeral, and visiting at the cemetery, we went to his church to eat, because that's always what you do in the South, right? Or maybe everywhere, I dunno. After that, we went to his house and my stepmom's house to visit, and pick up the things he had for us.
I walked in the house at 4:37 p.m.
I know this, because the Seiko stopped at 4:37 p.m. And stayed stopped the entire time we were there. We then left--I drove the car my Dad had just bought, and was going home with my brother, and drove it to my hotel. My brother and his family came up to our room and helped bring in some of the things.
The watch stayed stopped.
We said goodbye, made plans for today to do some business things and a brief visit, and my brother left in the car. As he drove away, I looked at the watch.
The Seiko started running at that moment. And has been running ever since.
You can call that a coincidence. You can call all of it a coincidence. I'm not sure what Dad was telling me, but I think he was telling me something. Maybe something like, "it's going to be alright, now time to move on and take care of my grandkids"--a note he had left to both my brother and I in an email telling us what he wanted to happen at his demise.
For what it's worth, there was nothing like the stem moved, or crown pulled out, or anything like that. Nothing. I promise. I just figured it was a bad battery--I bought a variety pack from Amazon, and that can be hit-or-miss. But it's still running now.
And if it quits tomorrow, and doesn't start again, it won't change my mind on what happened. It wasn't a coincidence.
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