My grandmother's clock

I have a chiming clock in the house. It was originally my maternal grandmother's, and my mother very kindly gave it to me a number of years back. Hearing it tick in the background, I often think about the song "My Grandfather's Clock". We used to sing it* in elementary school. That song is a sweet remembrance of someone's stout, elderly grandfather.

But.

But it's such a patriarchal clock in the song, isn't it? A huge investment on the day a baby is born. It won't fit anywhere convenient, so you have to make an extra space for it. And then everything comes to a stop when Mr Center of Attention leaves the scene. I understand that in the sequel it ends up in a junk shop, broken down for parts and chopped up for kindling.

My grandmother, whom I never met but am told I strongly resemble, was born into a poor immigrant family. She was a smart woman but had very little access to higher education. She was also a gifted crafter; I have one small piece of her weaving. She was not always happy in the space she was allowed to occupy in society, and she didn't raise a very happy family. Her death in her fifties was all the harder as a result, for her and for everyone who had to carry on.

But she left this clock, which she'd liked and bought as an adult. A little wooden Seth Thomas mantel clock, now with a chipped face after a shipping mishap. It has a soothing tick and a clear chime. It went through a phase of refusing to go for a few years, but has mysteriously resumed working again. Its ticking is the heartbeat of the house, a reminder of someone I wish I'd known.

And this is a great gift because she also left us ourselves: the female line, unnamed the way female lines are in our culture. A daughter, two granddaughters, one great-granddaughter", all of whom have inherited something of her smile and a lot of her brains. I look at my hands as I bind books and Fiona's as she draws, and wonder what hers looked like on the loom. I look at the good in my life and wish more of it had been in hers too.

My grandmother's clock is at home on its shelf
As it was on so many before.
Not a gift at her birth, for she bought it herself
In LA at a secondhand store.

It has sounded its chimes
Through the good and happy times;
Been a comfort on days that I've mourned.
For it ticks on, though she herself was gone
Before I was born.

Her heart beating in memory.
(tick, tock, tick, tock)
Her voice singing the hours to me.
(tick, tock, tick, tock)
For it ticks on, though she herself was gone
Before I was born.

(I don't think today is any kind of anniversary. But since her genes and her clock are ever-present in my life, any day will do to post this.)

* the first verse, anyway. I've just looked it up and it does go on a lot longer.
" I have other cousins and nieces, but this is the female line I'm talking about.