When we moved into our house 25 years ago, one of the first things Ron really wanted to get was a cuckoo clock. It was something he had wanted since he was a kid. Although rather expensive and I wasn’t working at the time; those were my SAHM days, I told him to get one anyway since there weren’t that many things he really wanted. He spent a while looking but finally found the exact clock he’d been searching for.
It’s one of those old fashioned clocks that actually cuckoos every half hour and has to be rewound twice a day. There are two chains that have to be pulled in order to keep it going. That was always Ron’s job since it’s one of those things I’m not good at remembering to do. It has an old fashioned pendulum that swings back and forth, thus causing a constant ticking.
Over the years I grew to love the sound of the cuckoo. People hearing it for the first time would wonder how we managed not to go nuts from the constant cuckoos but it was one of those things we just adjusted to. But it was great to have if I wanted to know the time or if the power went out. It’s been a constant for 25 years now.
But ever since Ron died, the cuckoo clock has become almost a symbol. There have been a number of times I’ve forgotten to rewind it. Then I have to set the time again and try and get it to start working again. The time showing on the clock doesn’t match the number of cuckoos now and I can’t seem to get that to work but as I count the cuckoos rather than look at the time that doesn’t matter. But last Thursday the cuckoo clock stopped working altogether and I can’t seem to get it to going again.
This is now haunting me. The house is just missing something without the constant cuckoos I’ve grown accustomed to over the past 25 years. I’ve tried to get it to work a number of times but it just doesn’t seem to want to ‘catch’.
I tried again this morning and kept trying for about half an hour. The harder I tried, the more upset I became until finally I broke down in sobs. I finally had to stop trying since I had to get ready for work and didn’t want to go in with puffy eyes. I’m not sure I have the heart to keep trying to get it working.
There is an old song – some may remember it; that seems to haunt me about this cuckoo clock:

My grandfather's clock
Was too large for the shelf,
So it stood ninety years on the floor;
It was taller by half
Than the old man himself,
Though it weighed not a pennyweight more.
It was bought on the morn
Of the day that he was born,
And was always his treasure and pride;
But it stopped short
Never to go again,
When the old man died.

But it stopped short
Never to go again
When the old man died
Ninety years without slumbering
tick, tock,tick tock,
His life seconds numbering
tick, tock,tick tock,
It stopped short
Never to go again
When the old man died

For some reason this song runs through my head quite a bit now. There is more to it, but this is what I remember most. I didn’t know it was possible to get so emotional over a clock – I’m still feeling weepy about it, but it causes a silence in the house that hasn’t been there since almost the day we moved in. I had either the television on or music playing for most of the weekend but it still didn’t make up for the silence of the cuckoo clock.
I’m not quite sure what to do now, but I do know that every time I look at the clock now, it brings everything back again.