The Unexpected Joy of Having an Apple Watch

The best thing, next to Granny's photo albums

Today is January 12. It’s a rather uneventful date for most people, save for a few celebrity birthdays (Happy 60th to Jeff Bezos and Happy 50th to Sporty Spice). It’s firmly stick season, the time of year when you’re either a) digging out of snow, or b) hoping to see snow to break up the grayness outside. We’re all honestly just ready for spring, to see flowers bloom and the grass wake up from its dormancy.

But January 12 brings up two memories for me.

It was 22 years ago my wife and I went on our first date. Charleston, food, talking, the beach, and a lighthouse. The parts I remember still make me smile. Six months later we’d be engaged. You don’t remember every note and every deep look in each other’s eyes, but you don’t forget falling in love either. You just don’t.

My other memory from this day happened 9 years ago. It was my first day at a job that not only brought me back to my hometown, it allowed me to do the thing I’m passionate about. Writing. I won’t forget that first day, setting up my cubicle, meeting the occupants from the other cubes, and getting my first assignment. I was to write a brief paragraph promoting something. I remember sitting in front of the computer, wondering why in the heck anyone would trust me to write anything, and then turning in my draft scared to death they’d realize the big mistake they had made. 9 years later, I’m still writing for money. And still wondering if anyone will figure out I don’t know what I’m doing.

The dates we carry with us

January 12 is certainly not a day of joyous reflection for everyone. For some, it’s a smack of tragedy. The anniversary of a loved one passing. A divorce finalized. A painful layoff. A loss. A terrible memory we cannot do away with.

The first time I realized my grandmother’s mind was slipping was a year or two before she passed. She sat beside me on the couch and pulled from her purse a crinkled piece of paper. It was an obituary of a woman who died some 30 years before. She was killed in a car accident, and Granny wanted me to know. “Isn’t this awful?”, she’d say pointing to the woman’s picture. It was as if the incident had just happened and the disbelief was just setting in.

I’ve thought back on that moment over the years and wondered how often Granny unfolded that notice of her friend’s death, still in shock. Some memories never leave us, even when our memory leaves us. It makes me think of a passage from John Irving’s classic A Prayer for Owen Meany:

Your memory is a monster; you forget- it doesn’t. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you- and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!

I’d think about that sad memory of my grandmother as I stood in a black suit and tie with five of my cousins, carrying her casket to the graveside. Not only that memory but the good ones too. The ones where Granny would be so serious about something it was comical. The ones where she’d spoil us grandkids.

She was a strong woman, and I wrote a short poem about that strength after she passed.

My grandma
if she were alive
she would tell you
men are necessary.

But she raised 5 kids
while he ran off.
Moral of the story is
women are strong.

The memories that make us smile

A dear family friend took me by surprise when she gifted me with an Apple Watch. She knew about my health scare last year and knew it would help keep track of heart rhythms, sleep, exercise, and whatnot.

I’ve been impressed by how simple gamification of regular exercise can motivate me. But I’d be lying if that was the best part of this fancy watch. It’s the ability to get on the app and change the watch face. I can personalize it with dozens of different designs in brilliant colors. The choices would make even the most expensive Rolex jealous.

But the watch face that I use isn’t super-gadgety with a million widgets. It’s a simple photobook of memories. One that turns the page every time I turn my wrist.

There’s the photo of our youngest daughter playing guitar. There’s our other daughter standing in her cross country jersey. There’s my wife and I, atop a mountain we hiked on a fun getaway. Just the two of us.

There’s our family all dressed up at my niece’s wedding. There’s our girls in a field with our dog at a gorgeous Airbnb in Virginia. Then, of course, there’s our dog, my dog, Daisy. She’s a puppy in this one on my watch, the face of a canine angel. God, I love that dog.

Then the ones from the beach vacations. One of our girls dancing as the sun sets on the shore. And here, one of the three most important people in my life, posing on our final day.

I don’t know the exact dates off the top of my head from any of these photos. But I know how I felt at the time. I know how those photos make me feel now.

Of course, I don’t have photos on my watch that make me sad. There’s no death, no job loss, no marital quarrels, no father-daughter tension, no middle-of-the-night-oh-no-a-child-is-upstairs-puking pictures. Just sweet ones. Just happy ones.

What are you carrying?

We used to go see my Granny and Papa at their home when their health was relatively good. Their coffee table and side tables always had several photo albums there, ones we’d flip through seemingly on every visit. Even then, some of the pictures were decades old. But they were of family. Loved ones we saw infrequently. Family we now only see at funerals.

I miss the idea of photo albums. Physical books filled with memories of family and friends and the moments we talk about when sharing a holiday together.

There is one photo I carry with me. It’s tucked away in my wallet. A vibrant photo of my wife in her wedding dress. I see it when I open my wallet at the store to pull out a debit card. 20 years later, it still makes me smile.

But she doesn’t believe me when I tell her she’s even more beautiful now than she is in that picture. A picture that takes me back to a time when I was still skinny, still had a little bit of hair on my head, and still foolish enough to think I had a few things figured out.

Who knew where life would lead on January 12, 2002? Who could have predicted I was goofing off along the Carolina coast with my future wife?

And who can say where life will go from here, January 12, 2024? Some people have come and gone. Jobs have come and gone. We’ve moved in, packed up, moved out, switched states, changed diapers, celebrated birthdays, prayed through disasters, cried tears, shouted words, and laughed. A lot.

So if you ask me what time it is, just give me a minute. I’m caught up thinking about it all. And if you catch me in a grin, just know life can be bitter, but man, it sure has plenty of sweet moments. And I’m collecting as many of them as I can.