A watchmaker dies and is buried with his pocket watch, but the next day, his widow sees a boy praying in church with the same watch in his hands.
Edith and Charley Urbeck had been together forever, or at least it seemed like it. The two had grown up in the same street in Brooklyn, gone to the same school, and started dating in high school.
There was no Charley without Edith, no Edith without Charley, until that dreadful day the phone rang in the middle of a Saturday afternoon when Charley was supposed to be playing golf. The news brought Edith to her knees. Her Charley was gone.
Edith couldn’t believe it was her husband’s watch in this boy’s hand | Source: Shutterstock.com
Edith was in a daze. How was it possible? How could Charley be gone? He was so young, only 55, and that was nothing nowadays. How could she go on without him?
Through the funeral arrangements, the wake, the ceremony, even at her husband’s graveside, Edith felt it was all some elaborate hoax, and that Charley would suddenly sit up and shout: “GOTCHA!”
But it wasn’t a hoax or a practical joke. Edith knew this even as she picked out Charley’s favorite suit, the one with the fancy waistcoat, and his silk Italian tie. Then she opened Charley’s chest of drawers and took out his treasure.
Inside a special case was a very old pocket watch Charley had inherited from his father. Back in their first days of marriage, he would tell her one day it would go to their son, and maybe he too would be a watchmaker.
Edith couldn’t believe her beloved Charley was gone | Source: Unsplash
But there had been no babies, boys or girls, and for a time, it had seemed that their marriage would collapse. They had even separated, but after three months, Charley showed up.
“I married you cause I love you, Edith,” he said. “And I can’t live without you.” They had never spoken about those three bitter months apart, they just went back to being Edith and Charley.
Now Edith took out that pocket watch and placed it carefully in the undertaker’s hands. “I want this watch to be buried with my husband.” The undertaker nodded and took the watch. He would make sure Edith’s wishes were carried out.
And so Charley lay there in his coffin, with the gleaming pocket-watch chain...
