How My Father’s Broken Watch Helped Make Me Whole Again

Due to the pandemic and Matt’s weakened immune system, we could only visit them outside, at a three-foot distance, for a few minutes at a time. It was excruciating seeing them in pain, not being able to hug or comfort them. Matt unsuccessfully underwent dozens of rounds of chemo. And then dozens more. His odds looked grim until he was offered the chance to try a then newly approved immunotherapy procedure, CAR-T, which saved his life. It’s a story with a happy ending, and potentially a promising ending for the hundreds and eventually thousands more cancer patients who might be saved by CAR-T. But during the uncertain, unspeakable 18 months that led up to Matt’s recovery, I would cup my hands tightly around my wrist and my father’s watch, as if somehow, my father could pull off a miracle for Matt, a miracle that Dad couldn’t pull off for himself when he died just before his 76th birthday of complications from Type 1 diabetes.

The large round face of the watch, the Roman numerals, the cool feel of the watchband against my skin were all somehow reassuring, and I clung to them for minutes at a time. I couldn’t see my father’s face in the watch face, but I could see him in my mind’s eye, nodding as if marking the time with me, the time it would take to make Matt better.

Some people might have lit a candle; prayed to the patron saint of healing, St. Raphael; or feng shui-ed Matt’s hospital room. For me, my father’s watch embodied his magic, his caring, his spirit; my father, who was the first to cheer my smallest accomplishment and who shielded me and my mother and sister from his business and health worries.

My father wasn’t some larger-than-life figure; in fact, he led a pretty quiet life, punctuated by annual trips to Las Vegas to let loose and test his luck. When I was a toddler, he came home at lunchtime and made funny faces so I would laugh, and my mother could shovel in a few bites of the food I was refusing to eat. When I was 16 and directing a play I’d written in our living room, he would come home after a hard day at work to chauffeur my teenage actors home. He always remembered Valentine’s Day with a big chocolate heart — and he bought one for my friend Lesley too, because she didn’t have a father.

And my father was a fighter. I’d seen him through a heart attack, a ruptured appendix, blindness and amputations. During his long and awful stays in the hospital, I’d find him flirting harmlessly with the woman who delivered his dinner tray. So I had to believe that his spirit, his being, his watch, could conjure up the intense force that would be vital to saving Matt’s life. Because I wanted to believe. Because I needed to believe.

Some people might have lit a candle; prayed to the patron saint of healing, St. Raphael; or feng shui-ed Matt’s hospital room. For me, my father’s watch embodied his magic, his caring, his spirit; my father, who was the first to cheer my smallest accomplishment and who shielded me and my mother and sister from his business and health worries.

My father wasn’t some larger-than-life figure; in fact, he led a pretty quiet life, punctuated by annual trips to Las Vegas to let loose and test his luck. When I was a toddler, he came home at lunchtime and made funny faces so I would laugh, and my mother could shovel in a few bites of the food I was refusing to eat. When I was 16 and directing a play I’d written in our living room, he would come home after a hard day at work to chauffeur my teenage actors home. He always remembered Valentine’s Day with a big chocolate heart — and he bought one for my friend Lesley too, because she didn’t have a father.

And my father was a fighter. I’d seen him through a heart attack, a ruptured appendix, blindness and amputations. During his long and awful stays in the hospital, I’d find him flirting harmlessly with the woman who delivered his dinner tray. So I had to believe that his spirit, his being, his watch, could conjure up the intense force that would be vital to saving Matt’s life. Because I wanted to believe. Because I needed to believe.

Wearing the watch was strangely reassuring. Maybe the weight of the faux gold band slowed down my racing pulse; maybe it was simply the pause that holding tightly onto the watch provided, a thoughtful pause and prayer for Matt’s health, for my sanity during this insane time.

I didn’t tell anyone — not my husband, my best friend, or Matt or Alliana — why I was wearing the watch. I was afraid they would laugh, or that putting the words out into the world could lessen the power I was hoping I’d unleashed. I’ll never know if wearing my father’s watch truly had any impact on Matt’s recovery. The only thing I know for sure is that it helped me through that dark time. And that I continue to wear the watch, and to feel my father’s protection and presence, every day. 

AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP.