“My Grandfather’s Clock,” (A Song)
During his childhood, David mastered the lyrics of the song: “My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf, /So it stood ninety years on the floor, /It was taller by half than the old man himself, /Tho’ it weighed not a penny-weight more. /It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born, /And was always his treasure and pride, /But it stopp’d short never to go again/when the old man died.”
The song suggests that the clock’s life and the grandfather’s existence were intertwined. As a result, the clock cased functioning after the grandfather’s demise. The clock is symbolic of human existence or mortality. Perhaps, the song influenced David’s later obsession with clocks.
“David Parkin’s Diary, December 17, 1913”
David Parkin writes, “There is an oft-misunderstood statement ‘Misery loves company.’ To some, it implies that the miserable seem to make others like unto themselves. But it is not the meaning, rather there is a universality in grief, a family of sorrow clinging to each other on the brink of the abyss of despair…I once heard it preached that pain is the currency of salvation. If it is so, surely we have bought heaven.”
People experience grief universally. When grief strikes, it plunges individuals into desolation. The ability to weather pain, in the religious context, contributes to one's salvation. The inability to overcome or rise above pain could culminate in the destruction of a person.
“David Parkin’s Diary, December 8, 1918”
Parkin writes, “There are moments, it would seem, that were created in the comic theatre where we are given strange and fantastic tests. In these times, we do not show who we are to God, for surely He must already know, but rather to ourselves.”
The comic moments are very defining because they come with extremely weird temptations that individuals must overcome. Such moments are so complex that [people ay failure to understand themselves. Reliance on God is what aids in overcoming the challenging moments.
Concrete Testimonials of Existence
David Parkin states, “I find myself astonished at mankind’s persistent yet vain attempts to escape the certainty of oblivion; expressed in nothing less than the ancient pyramids and by nothing more than a stick in a child’s hand, etching a name into a freshly poured sidewalk. To leave our mark in the unset concrete of time-something to say we existed. Perhaps this is what drives our species to diaries that some unborn generation may know we once loved, hated, worried, and laughed.”
Pyramids are artifacts with confirm the existence of Egyptians pharaohs. The pyramids are long-standing proofs of existence comparable to modern-day diaries where people immortalize their memories. Humanity desires that their memories remain immortal long after they die. The diaries and other concrete testimonies of their existence contribute to the cementing of their memories.
