Pieces of life make time go by

"What are little boys made of? Snips and snails and puppy dog tails. That's what little boys are made of."

- 19th century

nursery rhyme

Emma and I are about the same age now. She, a tri-color English shepherd, is kind, gentle and shy - more so now that the years are stacking up. The old girl gets up more slowly now; so do I. And her bark, like mine, is heard less often.

We brought Emma home at about eight weeks. Almost immediately, she began teaching, showing me how to greet her eye-to-eye on all fours, patiently taking me on long walks, explaining with wags of her tail which parts of her body were most in need of scratching.

I learned the proper procedure for requesting the return of a thrown ball. It took awhile, but I eventually learned that one loud clap of my hands followed by the raising of my left arm with the shout "Emma" and she would deliver the ball to my opened palm.

Now in the autumn of life, I am aware of Emma's quickly passing years. I am sharper these days at noticing both her and my approaching aches and pains, and I am saddened that Emma's "dog years" are speeding her too quickly toward senior status. I am also struck by how my last eight or 10 years have whistled by. As those who have passed 65 can attest, the older one becomes, the quicker our annual spin around the sun becomes. My grandson Keelan explained that phenomenon to me five years ago.

"Grandpa," he said, "I have been listening to you and other people talking about how fast the years go by, but I don't agree. It takes forever for my next birthday to come."

Then, Keelan's lesson.

"Grandpa, I have been studying fractions in school. The reason your years are going faster than mine is because the yearly pieces of your life are becoming smaller. For you, a year is now only one sixty-fifth of your life, but for me a year is one-tenth of my life. My pieces are much larger than yours and take longer to live through."

There it is - the theory of relativity as taught by puppy dogs and grandkids.

Pat Williams served nine terms as a U.S. Representative from Montana. After his retirement, he returned to Montana and is teaching at the University of Montana-Missoula.