Wickie’s Watch
Off the coast of Scituate, a lighthouse has been sending the same message since 1893.
One flash. Four flashes. Three flashes.
The sequence was designed for navigation. The wives of local fishermen saw something else.
One. Four. Three.
I love you.
The men who first sailed by that light are gone. So are the women who waited for them.
The message remains.
My father once considered keeping a light along that same shore.
He kept something else instead.
A family. A name. A business built over decades and tended the way most enduring things are tended: quietly.
People imagine legacy as a handoff.
It isn’t.
The watch simply changes.
A father opens the door before dawn.
A mother stays after everyone else has gone home.
A daughter learns the rhythm without realizing she is learning it.
Years pass.
The work continues.
No one announces the moment it becomes yours.
By the time you recognize it, you’ve already been carrying it.
There is a word for the person who tends a lighthouse without owning it.
The wickie.
The wickie does not inherit the light.
The wickie keeps it burning until someone else can.
A generation builds.
Another maintains.
Another carries it forward.
Because the light was never theirs to keep.
Only theirs to tend.
My father carried it for a time.
My mother carried it.
Then, without ceremony, so did I.
One flash. Four flashes. Three flashes.
The message remains.
The watch changes.
