When my mother was in her eighties, she received a clock with a large digital display. They clock has the capacity to pick up a signal from a satellite and maintain up to the second accuracy. The large display shows the time, the day of the week, and the date. Later, when my mother came to live in our home, she brought that clock with her. After she passed away, the clock remained in the same place in our home until we moved nearly a decade after her death. When we moved, I placed the clock on our bookcases in our new home and then when we moved again a year later, the clock was moved once again.

Yesterday we had a conversation about that clock and I reflected that I never look at it. When I want to know what time it is, I generally consult my watch. I also have a cell phone that displays the correct time, as well as a computer. Our house is filled with devices that display the time, including the range and microwave in the kitchen. I occasionally look at those devices, but it never occurs to me to look at that digital clock when I want to know the time.

I think we may try to find a new home for the clock. The reason my mother liked the clock, the large display, might be useful to some other person. I suppose that there is a possibility that one day my eyesight might falter and I would like a clock with a large display, but it is hard for me to imagine such an event. I can read my watch without my glasses, simply by bringing my wrist closer to my face.

There is another reason, however, that I don’t expect that I will ever become attached to that clock. I simply prefer a watch with a face and a dial to a display of digits. My watch is electronic and will display the time in numbers, but I prefer to look at the dial with a second hand that sweeps around the face. I grew up with clocks that worked that way. I remember so well the clocks in our school that all were synchronized. At the top of each hour, the minute hand might move a minute or even a couple of minutes so that all of the clocks in the school would display the same time. I used to watch that clock, wishing for it to move forward a couple of minutes. That would occasionally occur as the clocks weren’t completely accurate and were more likely to be a bit slow than a bit fast.

I learned to tell time from a clock with a face at an early age. I don’t remember when I learned it. I think that only one of our grandchildren knows how to tell time from such a clock. They are used to clocks that display numbers.

For me, a bit of magic has returned to our home that makes it feel like home. On Friday, I brought a large box that has remained packed since we emptied our home in Rapid City from storage into our living room. I unpacked it on Saturday and placed three clocks in three rooms in our house. Each clock needs to be wound in order to work and I immediately wound the one in our study. The ticking of that clock is loud enough to be heard throughout the common areas of our house. I can’t hear it in the bedrooms, but it is a regular sound that I listen to and enjoy when I am in the study, reading or writing. It chimes the hour. The other two mechanical clocks ring on the quarter hour and we have decided to keep them silent for the time being because none of those clocks is accurate enough to get them to synchronize their rings with any consistent basis.

The clock that is in the study is a 24 hour clock. If I don’t wind it each evening around bedtime, it will run down and stop until it is wound and set once again. I like the chore of winding the clock as part of my bedtime routine. I also make sure that the time is set. The first day after I unpacked the clock it ran about 15 minutes fast. I adjusted the pendulum and reset the clock. Last night it was off by about 5 minutes. I made another adjustment of the pendulum. Right now it appears to be ringing right on the hour. I know from experience that I won’t get it adjusted much closer. Any variation less than 5 minutes in 24 hours is as close as that clock will get.

The clock is now in its fourth generation of our family. I’m hoping that one of our grandchildren will one day want to have the clock, but I’m pretty sure that it is something that neither of our children want to have in their homes. Perhaps the chore of winding a clock each evening is a pleasure that doesn’t fit into their busy lives and they will change their minds as they age. I don’t expect it, however. They have their ways of telling what time it is and just don’t need the noise and aggravation of a striking clock in their lives.

The sound of that clock, however, is something that makes our home feel like home to me. I find the sound of its ticking to be just the right reminder of the passage of time. I am delighted to have the sound back in my life and realize how much I missed it with the clocks being packed away for two years. I’m not sure why it took us so long to get to unpacking the clocks. Somehow they weren’t identified as essential when we were in the process of moving. There are lots of thing associated with moving that we didn’t expect. I don’t think we expected to downsize once and then downsize again a year later. I don’t think we anticipated how much energy moving twice in two years would consume.

Whatever the reasons, the clock’s sound is music in my ears and listening to it makes me feel that this house is becoming our home.