Time Seems To Change As We Age
by Dennison Keller
“Like sands through the hour-glass, so are the days of our lives.” Fans of daytime television will remember those haunting words and the visual that framed them as they tuned in to the long-running soap opera Days of Our Lives. While the simple show opening grew trite and outdated over time, I would submit that never have truer words been spoken in the history of television.
If you look at an hourglass, the sands pass through to the bottom methodically at the exact same rate. But as you get toward the end, the granular pieces seem to accelerate dramatically, swirling into a vortex until they are all gone. Time’s up.
I’m reminded of this quickening of time’s pace this month as it marks the five-year anniversary of my father’s passing. Five years! How is it possible?! It literally feels like it was just last Saturday when we all gathered around him as he drew his last breath. We still miss him terribly.
My father retired at 70 and died at 83. I’m struck by what a blur the last 13 years of his life seemed to be. The sands seemed to be dropping in hyperdrive then. And of course, five years on, they are racing downward in my own hourglass too.
In just the past five years, I’ve lost my father, sold the house I grew up in, moved my mother to a new home, watched my three sons graduate from college, and bid them farewell as they moved out of the house (two of them to New York).
And that’s to say nothing of the challenges, highs, and lows of running a business and law firm, including introducing our annual Elder Care Symposium and seeing my wife retire from a long career in teaching to enter the firm as our office manager. All the while, I’ve embarked upon a new hobby of community theater, appearing in several local productions.
Despite all of that, I somehow feel like my sand allotment should be just as full as it was five years ago. It all rushes by so, so fast.
I’d like to think my father would be proud of my efforts of the past five years. But either way, the sands remain relentless in their descent. If there is one lesson I’ve learned from him, it’s to try to make each grain unique. So while the days may pass like sand, they don’t have to end like it, and the bottom of the hourglass is full of a colorful life well lived.
