My dad, who is nearly 80, has too many stories that will be lost if we don't capture them on paper, in photos, on video, and in our hearts and minds.  Come to think of it, I'm now more than half a century old myself!  Lately, I have felt the need to draw in the net around the memories that I would like to pass on to my kids...and theirs.  So last week, I started writing my life story.  Nothing fancy.  Just names, dates, places, defining moments.

Isn't it interesting that when we're young, we count our age forward, stretching out the months and saying things like, "I'm fifteen and three quarters...." We're in such a hurry to be older.  But when we're older, we start counting backwards: five years till the kids graduate from college, ten years till they may be married, fifteen years till we retire.  And the thought of being alive fifty years from now...it might be little more than wishful thinking.  

So to slow the inevitable onslaught of accelerating time, I'm learning to savor each moment, cherish each day, anticipate the coming week.  Not so I can rush through each of them, but so that I can appreciate them.  Perhaps this is why the Psalmist wrote, "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Ps. 118:24."  

Perhaps counting backwards makes each day worth more.