Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock
Daniel Keyes: “I want to stop time, freeze myself at this level and never let go of her.”
When you’re watching someone you love more than life itself moving nearer and nearer to death’s door, the one thing you want more than anything else in the world is for the hands of time to stand still.
All the hopes and dreams you had of a life of grandeur that you once thought you wanted now seem inconceivably incongruous. Of course, we’re only human, we all think we want the big house, the flash car, the fancy job……then poof, with that one call giving you news of the impending death of the one who gave you life, and just like that, you’ll trade everything you’ve got and more to be able to wind back the hands of the clock.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock
How you begin to dread that sound. It gives you nothing to look forward to, on the contrary, you dread what is ahead. You’ve been told; it’s only a matter of time. What is time you wonder! You once thought time was a gift, but what do you do with this gift of time? Suddenly you want to immortalize every second of every minute of every hour of every day
Tick- tock, tick-tock, tick-tock
Things you never noticed before, things you previously took for granted, things you once disregarded as being the most minuscule of things suddenly become disproportionately important; a strand of hair on her brow, the feel of her hand in yours, her words whispered almost incoherently in the dead of the night, her laughter though barely audible now, and more than anything else the words “I love you” as you know only she can say with so much unconditionality.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock
As you sit up through the night, watching her inhale and exhale, with every breath she takes becoming more of a death-defying feat, your heart rages between what you want for her and what you want for yourself.
For her, you want this breath to be her last — because you know that every fiber of her being is ravaged with pain and you see it in her pleading eyes now that she can’t take anymore.
For yourself, you selfishly want more — one more warm breath on your cheek, one more clasp of her hand in yours, one more inaudible whisper of “I love you”.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock
And then as the clock struck midnight she took her last breath. And with that, your life as you knew it would never be the same again. That one ever so simple, but yet ever so perfect word, “mama”, would never leave these lips again.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock
Time moves on. Day turns to night and night turns to day — you don’t want it to, but it does.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock
Yet, every now and then as you listen to the sound of the rain splash on the water, the breeze circle through the trees on a warm day, the bells of the steeple in the distance, or sometimes just simply the sound of silence — and you hear that all too familiar and comforting voice telling you that this too shall pass.
