In my great-grandmother’s house, there is a watch that counts down the seconds until the best days of my life. My great-grandmother tells me that once the clock stops you can never wind it back up— she says that everybody who looks at it is seeing a different time from everybody else.
Of course, no one ever wanted to check it.
It was the same summer I almost died on the beach.
I convinced myself that I knew how to swim in the ocean and let the undertow drag me far from the shore and everything I loved. I thought, hysterically, as I fought against the water, that if I were looking at the watch now, surely it would have stopped. Now that I was being dragged away and the ocean was about to take me, there must be no better days to look forward to.
The miracle of my rescue isn’t one I remember well.
South Florida isn’t known for miracles, and I’m not known for looking for them. I’m used to Miami Beach during the off-season, hole-in-the-wall spots that only the locals can tell you about, the best mangos the world has to offer. I’m used to my aunt pointing out shiny new shopping centers from the car, telling me about the empty lots that once stood in their place.
This is not a place for miracles.
Certainly isn’t a place for the best days of my life.
“And anyway,” my heart asks, “Why would you want to know when the best days of your life are going to reach you?”
One summer, years later, my great-grandmother tells me, “It’s a beautiful world because you’re in it.” It’s midday, and the family is all gathered along the beach—the grill is hot, the fishing poles are set up, and the cousins are laughing.
I think about the watch again; imagining the way that the second hand must slowly be ticking away. Unless, of course, it had already frozen in place. It was possible, I knew, that I would spend the rest of my life living in the shadow of how good life had been.
But between the saltwater and the beachside cookout, my heart kept whispering
“This is what life is, this is all you’ve ever wanted.”
Who really wants to be told that the best days of their life are still ahead of them?
Or, worse, that they were far behind them?
My great-grandmother tells me that she remembers the way the sunset looked on this beach forty years ago, and it’s not the same now. Still good, but not the same. The watch has already stopped running for her, she insists. It stopped running a long time ago, though she’s not sure exactly when. The best days of her life had come to a standstill, and she couldn’t even name the moment they ended.
That was better, I figured. Once you know the moment, everything can be held in comparison to that instant. A life of comparison is no life at all.
The family knows about the watch, but they never ask about it. There are birthdays to celebrate, Christmas presents to wrap, and weddings to dance at. There is so much life left to live, and none of them want to spend it dreaming about the past.
So I leave my grandmother near the grill, but only for now. Run down to the shore with the rest of the cousins, kick my flip-flops off by the cooler, and race into the water. I remember the way the water felt that summer years ago. It’s different now.
The time has gone by, and I know how to swim in the ocean now. I can leave the seashell-studded ocean floor behind and move with the waves. If I swam hard enough, it seemed, I might be able to meet the sun at the horizon.
There are better days to look forward to, but they won’t dim this one. Between the blistering heat and the smell of the grill my heart whispers, “This is what life is. This is all life is.” I think of my mother, and my father, and their siblings, and their parents, and all the people before them that I will never know but always love.
I remember the way the sunset looked on this beach ten years ago, and it’s not the same now. Still good, but not the same.
In my great-grandmother’s house there is a watch counting out the seconds until the end of the best days of my life. I think, “Surely these must be the best days of my life.” But I won’t check, and it doesn’t matter. The second hand could draw to a stop any second now, and it would not make a difference.
It would not change the miracle of the ocean, or the decades my family has been here. It would not change the holidays spent at my grandmother’s house or the long drive back to North Carolina. There’s mangos growing across the road from the home my great-grandfather built, and the avocado tree that hangs above the ancient truck beside the house that I’ve never seen move. There’s cakes people would fight over taking home at Christmas dinner, or the many times I raced under the sprinklers in the yard to escape the mid-summer heat.
When I make it back to the shore and everything I love, my heart asks, “Why would you want to know when the best days of your life are going to reach you?”
Let me rephrase: why would you want to know when the best days of your life are over?
