The Clock

"Where are you going?" my mom asked again."I'm going to buy a new kitchen clock, mommy.

The one we had for so long, has stopped ticking," I replied, hoping that if I added some more information, she would remember what I had said just a few minutes earlier. "We must have had that kitchen clock for ten years. It just stopped working. I'm going to get a new one!" I said excitedly. Mom looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time. I knew that her vision was compromised, so I moved closer to her. Her frail fingers held on tightly to the sides of her wheelchair. She smiled at me. I was only a dark shadow in her sun-filled room.

I nuzzled my nose in her neck and she kissed my check. "I am a clock."I didn't really hear her words, and so I asked, "What did you say, mommy?" "I am a clock," she answered..loudly, without hesitation. I  pulled back, and looked at her. Does she even realize what she had just said? Often, she would use the wrong word. Her sentences still had proper structure..but she was displaying wrong word choices, at times. So, I was not quite sure, what she meant. "You're a clock?" I asked. "Of course. We are all clocks. 

We have all been created by someone. We tic-toc for as long as we can. When our day comes, and we can tic no more, we stop," she explained. How profound, I thought. (At this point in mom's life, she has no memory of her cardiac arrest nor of the pacemaker in her chest.) "Mommy, you are so smart," I said sincerely. I saw her thinking..not a good thing. I don't like when she entertains thoughts of death and dying. "Mom..most clocks have batteries! We will just replace your batteries!" I said happily.

"Darling..when this clock stops ticking (pointing to herself), do not replace the batteries. I want to go back to whoever it was, that made me."  "OK, mommy," I answered. Teary-eyed, I kissed her sweet face several times and stood up from the chair which was next to her wheelchair. "I have to go," I said. "Where are you going?" she asked. This time, I replied differently. "I'm going to get some water." I left, knowing that in a few minutes, she would not remember that I was there. I believe, the concept of time is accepted by the young, feared by the middle aged and dismissed by the old. We keep time, spend time, manage time and often, we kill time. The older we get, the more we realize how precious it is and that we must cherish time. Once, the clock stops, time is no more.                

Peace