JODY'S WATCH
“Even though it wasn’t fancy, for him it was still a status symbol—signaling, in his case, the no-frills life he loved.”
Jody and I met after New York City’s Pride March on June 28, 1987. It's a cliché, but it was love at first sight. While we never legally married (on the advice of our estate planner), we were registered as domestic partners, and in our hearts we were “as married as any other old fart couple," to put it Jody’s way.
Two months after we met, when he was only 25, Jody was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Within two years he needed a wheelchair to get around. He’d worked as a customer service representative for a company that dealt in stationery and related products, but the MS impacted his manual dexterity and caused memory lapses, so at 28 he left the workforce on disability.
Jody was not one to sit at home and mope. He rode his electric scooter to our church to pray for a cure for MS. He visited our local park to enjoy its beautiful gardens and view of the Hudson River. And he was a regular at a nearby luncheonette, sharing meals with people he’d befriended. He always had a warm hello for everyone he met. What he didn’t have was a concept of time. He lived on Jody Standard Time. He’d go out saying, "I'll be back in ten minutes,” and then be gone for hours. For the sake of my blood pressure (it’s nerve-wracking when your beloved has MS and routinely goes missing!), I decided he needed a watch.
I wanted to get him something elegant, but Jody was a jeans-and-T-shirt guy. He'd take a cold beer and barbecued pork over dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant any day. So he insisted on a simple Timex. ("What's the difference between a Rolex and my Timex?" he used to joke. "About ten thousand dollars!") Even though it wasn’t fancy, for him it was still a status symbol—signaling, in his case, the no-frills life he loved.
The watch became the first thing Jody put on in the morning and the last thing he took off at night, when he’d lay it on his nightstand. An electric alarm clock with huge digital numbers was also on that nightstand, but if Jody woke up before dawn, the watch is what he’d check, as if it glowed with a better quality of time.
Jody showed mild symptoms of COVID-19 on Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020. On April 15, his condition worsened and he was taken by ambulance to the hospital. Despite fighting valiantly for the next few days, he passed on Sunday, April 19, at 2:45 p.m.
The hospital gave me a small plastic envelope containing Jody’s belongings: the ring that matched the one on my finger, and the Timex. Its hands had stopped at 3:15, the exact time I learned that Jody had died. For me, the watch will always mark the point between life with Jody and life after Jody. It is my hope that someday we’ll be reunited, and when that happens I imagine that the second hand will begin to sweep again and the watch will proceed to 3:16, then 3:17, and on toward eternity.
—Ed Koenig
Ed Koenig is retired from a career in technology. He writes non-fiction and memoir and dabbles in poetry and music.
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Ed, your gifted writing always touches me deeply. In 600 short words, I have laughed, cried, and continued to get to know Jody. Like you, and through you, he blesses my life. Thank you.
Sounds like he was a wonderful person. So sorry for your loss!