I took it off his cool lifeless wrist on the day that he died, and put it on my own. It's told the time with reasonable accuracy ever since. A simple mechanical watch serves many purposes. Telling the time, of course, but other purposes that have value in our digital age. It reduces the number of times per day I feel compelled to look at my magic devil box, which is a blessing. It ticks audibly, as the mechanism physically marks away the seconds remaining in my own mortal coil. This feels real and tangible, an analog actuality in a vaporware age. It does one thing well, without distraction. These are good things.
That's not to say there aren't challenges with an old watch.
The watch will need a new battery soon, as the Timex IndiGlow (tm) feature for nighttime timekeeping has started to dim. It's started slowing down a little bit, requiring readjustment through the little twisty knob on the side. Again, a new battery is all that's needed.
The primary fail-point, though, has been the band. It's a simple leather thing, faded and worn. The watch lug loops have given way multiple times, the leather yielding to entropy, the machine-stitching well past its functional lifespan. I've been tempted, each time, to replace the band.
I mean, it's a band. Just a strip of cheap hide. It's not expensive.
But like everything that matters, the watch isn't just about function. It rested on my father's wrist for decades, and the band...being organic and slightly permeable...carries with it more of him than the metal watchbody itself. It's stained and suffused with his sweat. Some of his DNA, no doubt, is sequestered away in the folds and cracks of that old leather, as surely as it is in my own flesh.
Letting go of the band, or so my utterly illogical sentimentality dictates, is letting of a substantial portion of that intimate reminder of him. So what to do, when that band fails?
Given that my leatherworking skills are non-existent, I've taken the easy route, applying a classic Dad-fix to that memento of my own father: epoxy. Just glue it back together. It works, right up until it doesn't.
Last week, my most recent repair failed, and the watch fell from my wrist. Undamaged, thankfully, but the whole leather lug-loop was gone. There was nothing left to glue, nothing left to wrap around the bar of the lug. This, I thought ruefully, might finally be the end of the band. I let it set for a little bit, as I mulled my options.
A fierce sentimentality can be the mother of ingenuity, and time for reflection stirred a thought.
The band was two stitched pieces of leather, and were I to carefully slice them apart and trim away one half, I could construct a new lug-loop. Simply slice, apply epoxy, and boom. It'd be back on my wrist. Why not? If it failed, I'd just sigh and get a new band. If it succeeded, I'd still have that soft worn remembrance snug wrapped around my arm.
So I sliced it carefully, opening up the seams of the leather. I whittled about the edges with the blade, and then...with vise and glue and time...remade what had failed.
This Father's Day, that old Timex still rests on my wrist.
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