Share one of the best gifts you’ve ever received.
My grandfather died when I was seventeen. It was an industrial accident, and it came out of the blue. One minute he was there, the next minute he wasn’t. He died the day before I stared university, so the next few weeks were hard. Grieving on the one hand, trying to concentrate at the same time.
We were close. Not because he was charming. He was odd. Not the kind of eccentricity that draws a crowd—more the kind that makes people tilt their head and wonder.
But the real reason we were close was simple: he had time for me. He noticed me. He made space. When you’re young, that counts for more than people realise.
He loved the horse races. A lot of damage was done by his heavy gambling, especially to my grandmother. That’s part of the story too. I often went with him, not because I wanted the thrill of it, but because I liked being with him. He would walk up to the bookmakers and they’d greet him by name. He introduced me around like I belonged there.
My family worried I’d gamble as well. I understood that, but I was never interested in gambling. I could see what it took from him, and what it took from everyone else. I didn’t love the betting. I just loved the time together.
The following Christmas was the first Christmas after he died. People wondered how I would be. But I was okay. It wasn’t unusual for him not to be there on Christmas Day—he often worked—so the absence had a familiar outline, even though the reason had changed.
Then I opened my present.
It was his watch.
My family had kept it aside for me until Christmas. I hadn’t seen it coming. It had a metal band and it was in good condition. His work was physical—he worked in a boiler room at a hospital—so he didn’t wear it much. Later he had glaucoma and couldn’t read the time, so he only wore it occasionally in the end. He carried time without being able to check it.
Which meant the watch had been waiting.
I wore it every day for years. It lasted a long time before it wore out. And every time I fastened that metal band, I thought of him—not as a saint, not as a villain, just as my grandfather: complicated, damaging in places, and still someone who gave me his time.
That was the gift.
The Afterword 
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