No one can stop the clock.

Mostly alone, in a dark, quiet room of a hospital Dad sits and lies upon the bed from which he will never leave again. He is slowly dying each day, his body with pain and his energy exhausted so that he has not even the strength to eat or talk much if he wanted. All hope for the future here in this world has gone now. The doctors, nurses and hospital personnel have done all they could do. Now it is only a matter of time.

Time – the one commodity of life that we all take so much for granted when we have it. But time is not my Dads friend anymore. Time has become his enemy.

His time has passed so quickly in years gone by. Only weeks ago he was remembering many of the days that he had spent so frivolously, but now the medication and the suffering of this last week have erased those memories. He could only bring himself to remember the names of us sitting beside him and then sometimes not. Now all that remained of time for Dad is days not months or years.

There, on the wall, hung his enemy; and at the same time, his greatest friend. It was a clock that just hung there in almost mute silence, glaring down upon him, gloating over its power to end his life.

Tic-Toc; Tic-Toc was the only sound it made as it hung there doing what it had always done before. Dad could hardly see it anymore, and not aware that it was there at all, steadily moving to the end of the hour and the end of his life.

I kept seeing the second hand as it so quickly made its journey around the circle, one second at a time. As I looked at that second hand moving along, I was reminded of the swiftness of the passing of time when all of us are busy, active and carefree. How many seconds, minutes, hours and days are wasted in uncontrolled living? Soon Dads flesh life will count for nothing. His experiences, lifelong goals, his what will I need to do tomorrow thoughts, will be all gone, within moments once he steps across into the eternal life. Yes many care whether he lives or dies, but no one can stop the clock.

In Dads room my spirit became aware of the clock that the second hand on the clock was going on, and would continue to go on, long after Dads time on earth had ended. I stared at it, concentrating as hard as I could, hoping that somehow, through wishful thinking and the power of my mind, that I could just slow that second hand just a little to gain a few extra seconds, but it was to no avail. The seconds just steadily ticked away. Around and around it went, and with each trip around I knew that there was one minute less for life left for Dad.

Those minutes were passing all too quickly. I began to remember those wasted minutes like when I sat at my desk just waiting impatiently for the get out of school bell to ring so I could rush off to continue doing what I wanted to do or the wasted minutes Dad and our entire family had experienced trying to make our business work. Oh, if only we could redeem those kind of minutes now! How much more could we make of our lives if we could only bring back those wasted minutes. But it is impossible to do. “Time waits for no one.” Dads minutes and seconds were passing away one by one; - the clock just keeps on ticking.

Dad can feel the cold hand of death as it began to grip his body. His limbs are as heavy as lead weights and he can barely move them no more. He barely has the strength to gasp each breath, and yet my mind remained fixed upon that clock, watching as Dads time drew nearer and nearer.

As I watched the hour hand it was ever so slowly moving onward. That was the hand to be feared the most, for it is the hour hand that would show the final hour of Dads life as it comes to an end.

I thought about that hour hand and it reminded me of the fact that we often forget that the seconds and minutes are the building blocks of the hours of our lives. We are caught up in the rat race of life, like the fast moving of the second hand. Then we see the days go by one by one, just like the slow moving of the hour hand. We often forget of the passing hour hand because it moves so slowly that sometimes it’s almost invisible. Yet it is moving.

All of the things I have thought so important at the time are now so unimportant. As Dad said only Days ago if only I could go back and give much more of my life in knowing the Bible and knowing Jesus. But, it was too late now

I keep remembering “James 4:14, "… For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away."

I know the end is near. Dad’s body is no longer movable on his own. His lips tremble as they move. It takes every ounce of strength he can muster just to open his eyes long enough to see my face.

He whispered last night Soon I’m going to be with Jesus.