Clock tells more than time

 By  J.D. Mullane

                                    We inherited the grandfather clock from my sister, Mary Beth, who was 47 when she died of cancer 10 years ago.
                             It's a handsome piece, about 6 feet tall, cherry wood, with a moon phase dial and a pleasant chime, when it works.  And that's the odd thing.  The clock hasn't worked since we've had it.  Yet, it still chimes, striking 12, always at peculiar times, usually when there's trouble.
                             It has been this way for years.  In the past two weeks the clock has chimed twice.  In one incident it drew our attention to a matter that required a call to Middletown police.
                             My wife believes the chiming is no coincidence.  When a person loves something, traces of that person ---- their spirit or energy, call it what you will ----- are left behind.
                            My sister loved that clock, which she kept polished and prominent wherever she lived.
                            She was a school teacher.  For 25 years she taught first-, second- and third-graders in special ed.  She never had children of her own, and I was always impressed with the bond she had with the kids in her classsroom.  I saw this each time she invited me to speak to her classes about what it's like to be a reporter.
                           The first time I recall seeing the grandfather clock was at her house in Lenox, Mass., in the late 1980s.  I vaguely recall her saying it had been given to her by a friend who was moving away.
                           Whenever she moved ----from Philadelphia or Montgomery County or Baltimore-----she'd sell or give away her furinture, but she always kept the clock.
                           When we got it, we put it in our foyer.  It's a handsome piece, with a gleaming face and dark hands.  But, as I said, as long as we've had it, it has never worked properly.
                           We launch the pendulum, and the clock keeps perfect time.  But several hours or days later, it stops.  I've rebalanced it and had it cleaned and serviced, but it makes no difference.  It always stops.  Clocksmiths have told us that all aging mechanical timepieces develop quirks, and that ours is no different.
                           We had the clock about a year when I first heard its brass chime.  I came out to the living room to see it.  I did a double-take when I spotted my son, Danny, who was 4-years old, climbing on top of our large, bulky television.  It was about to topple over on top of him.  I grabbed him just as it went over with a crash.
                           It chimed again when my son Jamie, who was 18 months old, crawled out the back door and made it to a neighbor's yard.
                           The chimes went off when Danny, who was a dedicated climber as a toddler, teetered atop a wobbly old metal high chair in the kitchen, reaching for a box of cookies.
                           My wife reminded me that for 10 years the clock has chimed every April, the same month my sister died and my daughter Maria was born.
                          Three weeks ago the chimes rattled to life on a chilly afternoon, near dusk.  I was standing in a hallway with Danny when the sound interrupted our conversation.  Then my daughter said, "Dad ---- a baby in a diaper just ran through our yard!"
                          I went outside and checked around the house and there, on our back deck, was a child we did not recognize.  He was lost but he wasn't old enough to tell me where he lived.
                          I took him by the hand and bought him inside.  My wife gave him strawberries and my kids kept him entertained.  I called Middletown police.
                         An officer arrived and as he was about to take the unknown child away, a woman came running.  The boy had slipped out of her house while she wasn't looking.  She was near panic, searching.  Had we not spotted him, he would have wandered to the next street, and to who knows where.
                         "That clock again.  I'll be damned," I said.
                         "It's weird," Danny said.
                         My wife said it wasn't weird at all, but my son and I quietly agreed that it was.