I used to think the worst thing a person could do after a funeral was steal from the dead.
Then my brother took something from our father that our mother had touched every night for years.
I learned there were worse things than stealing.
There was making the person left behind believe she had started forgetting the man she loved.
Dad's name was Harold Brennan.
He spent most of his working life at the steel mill, where the hours were long and the noise followed him home.
He was never a man who needed much.
A chair at the kitchen table.
A cup of coffee before work.
His reading glasses folded beside the newspaper.
And a watch.
That watch had been with him since 1974.
He bought it after receiving his first paycheck from the mill.
He told me about it once while I was helping him clear old boxes from the garage.
"First thing I bought with my own money," he said.
I remember the way he rubbed his thumb across the scratched glass.
It wasn't an expensive watch.
The casing was steel, worn dull around the edges.
The strap was leather, replaced whenever it became too cracked to wear.
The hands still moved.
That was enough for Dad.
He wore it when he married Mom.
He wore it when my brother Scott was born.
He wore it when I arrived, too.
Dad was in the delivery room both times, and Mom used to tease him about checking the time every few minutes.
"He was more nervous than I was," she told us.
Dad would shake his head and smile.
"I wanted to know when I became a father."
He wore that same watch to his retirement dinner.
He wore it to family gatherings, to the grocery store, and to the mill even after his hair had turned gray.
Fifty-one years.
I never understood what that meant until I saw his wrist without it.
Dad died in October.
There was no dramatic goodbye that we could hold on to afterward.
There was no final speech that made everything easier.
There was simply a funeral, a house that felt too quiet, and Mom trying to remember how to live alone.
The funeral home returned his personal belongings in a thin plastic bag.
Mom emptied it carefully.
She placed his reading glasses on the dresser.
Then she put his watch beside them.
She didn't wind it.
She didn't try to make the hands move again.
She only wanted it where he had always left it before going to bed.
I thought that was understandable.
Grief makes ordinary objects seem important.
A coffee mug becomes something you cannot put away.
An old jacket becomes something you cannot donate.
A watch becomes a small piece of a person who will never come home.
I didn't know then that I would spend months trying to bring that watch back to her.
My brother Scott had always been different from Dad.
Dad worked hard and saved what he could.
Scott spent money before he had it.
He borrowed from friends, missed payments, and made promises he rarely kept.
Whenever things became serious, he called Dad.
Dad rescued him more times than I could count.
Six times, at least, I knew about.
Each time, Scott said he had learned his lesson.
Each time, Dad believed him.
I used to get angry with Dad for helping him.
"You're not fixing anything," I told him once.
Dad stared at his coffee for a while.
"He's my son, Jenny."
That was the end of the conversation.
I understood the words.
I didn't understand how many times Dad would have to repeat the same mistake before he finally ran out of chances to help.
The week after the funeral, Scott stayed at Mom's house.
He said he wanted to help her sort through Dad's belongings.
Mom was tired, and I lived far enough away that I couldn't be there every day.
So I was grateful at first.
Scott knew where Dad kept his papers.
He knew which drawers held the old bills and which boxes contained things Mom hadn't touched in years.
I wanted to believe he was finally doing something for someone other than himself.
He slept in the spare room.
He made coffee for Mom in the mornings.
He carried a few boxes into the garage.
For several days, nothing seemed wrong.
Then Scott packed his bags and left.
The following morning, Mom called me.
Her voice sounded small.
"Jenny, have you seen your father's watch?"
I was standing in my kitchen when she asked.
I put down the dish I was holding.
"No. Where did you last see it?"
"On the dresser. I thought I left it there."
She paused.
"I can't find it anywhere."
I told her to check the bedroom again.
I told her to look inside the drawers and around the nightstand.
She did.
I could hear her moving things while we spoke.
Then she came back to the phone.
"It's gone."
I didn't answer immediately.
I remembered Scott staying in that room.
I remembered him helping Mom sort through the house.
And I remembered the way he had looked at Dad's belongings, as if everything left behind was simply something waiting to be divided.
Mom began apologizing.
"Maybe I put it somewhere else. Maybe I'm not thinking clearly."
"Mom, you don't have to apologize."
"What if I moved it and forgot?"
I closed my eyes.
She had buried her husband only days earlier.
Now she was questioning her own memory because a watch had disappeared from her bedroom.
I knew who I needed to call.
I just wasn't ready for what my brother would say.
Click here to continue reading: PART 2: My Brother Had Spent Years Asking Dad for Help, but This Time He Had Taken Something Mom Could Never Replace
The Forty Dollars My Brother Took From Dad’s Bedroom Meant More to Our Family Than Either of Us Understood
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