A Living Timex Watch

Years ago my sister gave me a Mickey Mouse watch by Lorus. It was the best watch I ever had simply because of the terrific Mickey Mouse graphic on it. As you can see here he’s dressed as a Cossack or something like that, in a black and red design. I am a Mickey Mouse aficionado. He’s my favorite cartoon character and he’s all over my house. I always dreamed of being as good of a cartoonist as Disney, never accomplishing that, but still I love to look at Him. He makes me smile. And Patty gave it to me. I wore it for at least 25 years. It was repaired numerous times. I planned on wearing it until I died. I loved it.

Young people won’t remember the early watch commercials, especially for Timex, but the rest of us will. John Cameron Swayze would do the wildest things, for the day, to prove how great Timex was. I remember one when he was under what seemed to be the ocean, in old-fashioned scuba gear, tap his waterproof watch and say the now famous line, “It takes a lickin’ but it keeps on tickin’!”
Just like my Mickey Mouse watch, it seemed to last forever and Patty gave it to me.

My sister and I were extremely different in most things (she would NEVER!!! wear a Mickey Mouse watch, much too much class) but that was okay. We loved each other. We had a lot of similar ailments. Mine started from birth. Lot’s of them, but they stayed in the arena of pain, annoyance, inconvenience, not life threatening.
Patty’s troubles started in her 20’s. First she developed extreme ulcerative colitis. EXTREME!!! A few years later it switched to extreme Crohn’s Disease. Her bowel became impacted and the blockage had to be cut out. She had a colostomy for a short while but insisted on being hooked up again. So they did but because of the severity of the disease they cut out all but 6 inches of her large intestine.
From there it was all downhill. This was about the mid 80’s.

She developed heart disease and had her arteries in her neck and legs roto-rootered as they were over 90% clogged. She developed severe osteoporosis, broke her hip and had multiple fractures, she had severe asthma and chronic pneumonia and had to be drained numerous times. She became the incredible shrinking woman. But she kept working and doing what she did, slower, more tired, but proceeded on.
I think it was my husband that started the joke at a holiday dinner. He said to her, “You’re like a Timex watch, you take a lickin’, but you keep on tickin’.” She would laugh. We all would. I loved her laugh.

If you look close, my Mickey Mouse watch began to lose it’s color on the edges, it began to look ratty. It had seen better days. Even if I repaired the inside the outside was shot. So I put it in my drawer, how could I possibly throw it out. It was my perfect watch and Patty gave it to me. But it’s time ran out.

My sister’s many ailments caught up to her in recent years. This past year was a quicker slide downward. Her suffering was unspeakable. The lickin’ was beating the tickin’. When we visited her in the hospital one day my husband said if Dave wasn’t sitting there he never would have recognized her.

The last few weeks she began sleeping a lot. October 9 she went into a coma, and since she had DNR on her chart, they put her on a morphine drip to make her comfortable and nothing else. But she proved the “Timex Theory” to the end.
She kept right on tickin’ away.
But time always runs out.

My dear sister left me to be with Jesus. He ended her suffering on the Lord’s Day, the day of rest, October 12. He took her from this veil of tears. But she took my heart with her, and I don’t know how to repair it. I won’t hear her voice any longer or her laugh. I won’t see her now for a short while. I will see her in the Resurrection of the dead when Jesus returns and raises us to be with Him forever. But for now the pain in my heart is crushing.
My precious sister, my precious friend will now, at last, rest in peace.
Godspeed my dear Patty!