1st memoir piece revised

Resurrection

“Dad’s atomic clock is dying,” I cried as I ran out into the living room.
Sighing patiently, my husband Drew put down the paper, glanced at the clock and went out to the freezer to look for AA batteries. Slowly, the clock began to pulsate back to life, but the date read 1/1, and the time blinked erratically between :58 and 12:30.

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Dad was always a difficult person to buy for--so maddeningly self-effacing that he never seemed to want or need anything.
“You kids just keep your money to buy yourselves something,” he’d reply when we would ask what he wanted for Christmas or his birthday.
So, we kids would ply him with Old Spice products; soap on a rope, talcum powder, cologne and deodorant; or button-down shirts, white when he was still working, soft blue checks once he retired; or sometimes really adventurous choices like blue jeans or Pittsburgh Steelers slippers.
No matter what the box contained, Dad would grin crookedly and exclaim, “This is just what I wanted!”
But I think he meant it when he opened the atomic clock.

I bought the clock at a Tuesday Morning several years ago when I was searching for something for Dad’s birthday. My once indomitable Dad was struggling more and more to bathe, dress and walk by himself, so Old Spice soap, a button-down shirt or slippers seemed like cruel reminders of what he was losing.
“It’s that Parkinson’s,” he’d explain as if the illness was just a thoughtless guest that had long overstayed his welcome. “I’m just fine,” he’d declare, “but that Parkinson’s is the problem.”
The atomic clock seemed just perfect—for Dad and his Parkinson’s. It displays the time, date, day, moon phase and temperature in large easy-to-read numerals.
“Oh, this is just great,” Dad exclaimed when he unwrapped the present. “But, it can’t be a true atomic clock. Must be a cheaper commercial one that uses radio frequency to get high-quality atomic-derived time. So if we just put it in a place where it will have a pretty unobstructed atmospheric path to the transmitter, it should keep very accurate time and temperature.”

Dad himself was pretty measured --someone who tenaciously clung to calculable standards in an often-random world. Dad’s childhood ended when he was only nine after his father died because of a steel mill accident. He started working every day after school and caddying on the weekends to help support his Mom and two younger brothers. This rock solid dependency defined Dad. When we were kids, he could always be counted on to be there when you needed him.
“Let go, Dad. Let go,” we’d scream over our shoulders as he ran behind our two wheelers newly released from the restraint of training wheels.
Dad though would trot behind us for what seemed like miles, refusing to let go and risk letting us fall. You’d look back and see him just grinning and hanging on.
He was the constant meridian in our chaotic household of six children, two grandparents, two parents and multiplying pets.

When Dad had to move into an assisted living residence, his atomic clock moved with him and sat on his bedside table near the window. I would often arrive for a visit and find Dad with the Weather Channel blaring and an oversized WWII airplane book splayed in his lap while he nodded in his recliner dreaming of his B-24 bombing missions.
“Hi Dad,” I’d say as I bent to kiss his cheek.
“Oh hi, Teri dear,” he’d whisper as he woke up.
On a good day, he might glance at the Atomic Clock and say, “It’s only 4PM, and it looks like it’s a nice sunny day and about 70 degrees, so why don’t we go out on the porch until supper.”
“Sure Dad, “ I’d reply as I steadied his arm while he slowly pushed his walker out to the porch.

The night Dad died, my family and I crowded into his small bedroom at the Household of Angels as he struggled to breathe. For the previous week, we had kept a vigil in round-the-clock shifts by his bedside as he lay unconscious and we talked, laughed, cried, ate, drank and slept with Dad, for the last time.
“Let go, Dad. Let go,” we whispered but he clung on for eight days.
The essence of Dad was all that was left with us that evening—he was shrunken, emaciated and almost unrecognizable as his winsome self. However, despite the indignity of sharing the last twenty years of his life with “that Parkinson’s,” Dad was leaving on his own terms and at his own time. As I watched him stop struggling and his spirit sprung free, I glanced over at the Atomic Clock: 10:40 PM 5/19/06 FRI 72 degrees. “Perfect timing, Dad,” I whispered. “It looks like you have an unobstructed path to the Transmitter.”

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I grabbed the newly revived clock from Drew and raced outside to put it in the sun. Miraculously the display began to re-emerge: 10:23 9/7/07 FRI 87.8 degrees. I carried the clock lovingly back inside and propped it in the window above my desk where it has watched over me for the last fifteen months. I think a GPS would position my desk window as southeast but I know that my atomic clock is facing north—true north on a barely visible prime meridian.