Gone but still here

Prologue

My mother always liked when the clock stopped right before the hour. She said it was leaving us a moment to remember what happened in the hour, knowing we will never again have the same time on the same day in the same year. She loved how it felt, as though time had frozen, just for a minute; and that the minute feeling longer than any other. I miss her holding my three year old self up so I could watch the clock. And later, when I was old enough, she would carefully explain her theory again and again to me; bits and pieces beginning to make sense. As much as my father bugged my mother to get rid of the clock, she, being the boss, never did. I still have that clock, on my wall, it ticking away and stopping right before every hour.