"Bored? Why are you bored?" Grandpa asked.
"The day is dragging by," the child replied. "I can't believe how slow the time is moving. I want to go on vacation to the shore and that's not until August."
"Time for me is moving too fast. It seems like just yesterday your daddy was your age. Now he's grown with his own child," the old man said.
"Grandpa, how can time move slow for me and fast for you?" The old man sat up in his chair, reached into his pocket, and pulled out his pocket watch. It was a classic engraved timepiece, a gold one that would catch the fancy of any young child. "Grandpa, that's awesome!" the young boy said.
"Awesome, indeed!" he said. Then leaning toward the child he whispered, "And it's magical."
"Magical? What can it do?" the child asked.
Grandpa smiled and said, "Put things into perspective!"
"What? What's per..spek...tuv?"
"Perspective." he said correcting him. "Look." The old man leaned closer to the child. "Watch the hands. In particular watch the second hand." The two of them sat nearly head to head watching the hand clicking off the seconds.
"What's it doing?" the child asked.
"One, two, three, four, five, six...." the old man counted. "Now, you hold it." The old man carefully placed the watch in his hand. To a child his age, it was like holding a golden toy, one of those forbidden "things he should never touch." "Tell me what you see," Grandpa said.
The child, trying as hard as he could to see the magic, the "per...spek...tuv," stopped looking in frustration. "Grandpa, I don't see anything," he said.
"Look again, count the clicks," he urged the child.
"One, two, three, four, five...."
"Keep going," Grandpa said.
"Six, seven, eight, nine, ten..."
"Don't stop!"
"This is boring!" the young child said.
"It's moving too fast," Grandpa said.
"It's not," the child told him. "It's the same as when you counted it."
The old man sat up and smiled.
"Exactly."
The young boy looked at him for a few seconds, then back down at the watch. "I don't get it," he said.
"Because I am older, I see the hand on the watch sweeping past the numbers. Because you are young, you see them clicking slowly by. Time is how you see it, how much you value it, how long you've lived it. You see all the time in the world. I want to see all the world in the time I have left."
"But it's the same time," said the boy.
It would be a few years later, long after that moment was forgotten by the young child, that the old man passed away. Sitting at home with his parents after the funeral that day, the boy, now in his early teens, sat quietly at the dinner table.
His father walked in and placed a small box in front of him.
"What's this?" he asked.
"Grandpa told me to give this to you."
A chill washed over the young man as he sat up and held the small box.
"He said you would appreciate it. He said it was magical," his mother added.
Now fumbling nervously to open the box, he unwrapped the faded white tissue paper.
"Oh, Pop," he whispered.
"Open it up," Dad urged.
It all came rushing back to him. There on the inside cover he discovered an engraving that hadn't been there before.
"Do you understand what it means, because I don't," said his dad.
"Per...spek...tuv," he read.
Tears that little boys shed and young men won't acknowledge slipped slowly down his cheeks.
"Come here, Dad. Sit next to me and I'll show you the magic."
Time passes, but love never dies.
