Happy Sunday, everyone!

Every Wednesday, blogging buddy Aaron over at The Confusing Middle posts a “Sunday Scribblings” prompt for other bloggers to ponder and respond to on the following Sunday. If you’re a blogger looking for more inspiration, I highly recommend jumping in and joining in on the fun!

This week’s prompt is: Watch!

I don’t own many watches…you know, since I have a device in my pocket that can tell me the time. I don’t carry around my pink TI-84 for similar reasons.

You all know that I saved up for a pocket watch with the faces of the Warner Brothers characters as the numbers. I also had a Jennifer Lopez watch shaped like a heart back in middle school. I proudly wore it with my pink Timberlands, thank you very much. Then there was the time in college where I met someone who had one of those wraparound rubber watches and I bought it in every color at Target because I thought it was so cute.

But today is Father’s Day, so this is the story about my dad’s pocket watch.

It may not be the long, exciting, riveting story that it might’ve been had this happened last year (instead of when I was 10), but mayhaps my dad will join in the comments and fill in some gaps. Fun fact: if you ever see someone named “Ed Leo” commenting on my posts, it’s my dad. No, his jokes aren’t funny. Yes, I do have to fake laugh at them anyway.

When my dad was younger, his grandfather gave him an engraved pocket watch. I was lucky enough to have half of my great-grandparents alive when I was born, so I knew them well and saw them frequently, although this particular great-grandparent passed away before I could meet him. My dad is from an Italian family, and he was close with all of them from a young age. In college, he even lived with his grandparents for some time.

When I was a kid, my dad would tell me about his adventures with his family and the pocket watch would come up occasionally. When it did come up, the story would always end in a sigh. Throughout the years, the pocket watch was misplaced. He was sad to admit that one of the remaining reminders of his grandfather was probably lost forever.

So if you’ve ever wondered where my sentimentality comes from, here you go!

One day, after hearing about this pocket watch for years, I was hanging out at my mom’s parent’s house. My Mom mom offered to show me her jewelry collection, and I jumped at the opportunity. Pretty jewelry? Yes, please!

Amongst all of the shiny necklaces and rings, some of my grandfather’s jewelry was in her jewelry box as well…along with a pocket watch.

Okay, so you know where this is going, but you’re going to have to pretend to act shocked for me…

When I asked my Mom mom about it, she said that she didn’t remember it but it must be my Pop pop’s watch. It stuck a bit when we tried to open it, but eventually we got it open. And it said…

Eddie Leo Jr!

GASP! A SHOCKING TWIST!

Young Renata was near bursting at the seams to tell Dad about how I found his watch. I couldn’t wait for him to get to my grandparent’s house for dinner so I could proudly tell him that his watch was found! He was ecstatic, of course, to have this reminder of his grandfather back in his possession.

This was probably one of the proudest moments of my young life, so it was nice to be able to relive this memory this week for the Sunday Scribblings!

Happy Father’s Day, to my dad and all the other dads out there!

Photo by felix rosa