My father taught me how to drive a car.
On a huge, abandoned slab of concrete I maneuvered the car through a course defined by the weeds which grew in the many cracks.
There was nothing to hit that would damage the car – or dent an ego, either.
“Just keep your hands at ten and two,” my father said as I slipped in behind the steering wheel for the very first time.
These many years later, I was reminded of my father’s instructions as I looked at the timepiece passed down from my grandfather, to my father, to me.
The watch’s hands had stopped at “ten and two.”
Not quite the placement of hands in how a beginning driver grips the steering wheel – the left hand at 10 o’clock and the right hand at two o’clock – but just the same my grandfather’s timepiece recalls for me to share before my life’s watch unwinds and my time ends.
And that is to give the gift of time.
The time it takes to teach a child; the time it takes to coach a baseball team; the time it takes to face adversity, the time it takes to grasp life and live it fully.
Like the ticking of a watch as it marks time, life is about appreciating every passing moment we have been given and those with whom we share it.
My grandfather’s timepiece and my father’s instructions of “ten and two” are both poignant reminders and keepsakes about the gift of time we’ve all been given.
Nan Peele says
y father taught me to drive on the roads of a cemetery. A former highway patrolman in Kansas, he would take me through all the drills and if (when) I would make a mistake he’d point to a nearby gravestone and say, “Do that on the road with traffic, that’s where you’re going to end up!”
When I graduated from Driving 101, we moved to a different classroom.
Frances Rawlings says
David, You reminded me that my Dad taught me to drive on the streets of Tillicum. We had an old Studebaker and he taught me many valuable lessons. The first of which was to remember that I was driving a machine that could take someone’s life in an instant. I’ve never forgotten.