Life is precious. It is too bad we often need to learn that lesson through experience. I am glad I am only 22 years old. If I live to be 86, I technically have three more lifetimes to go.

That’s three more opportunities to take tango lessons, three more chances to try the things I missed, three more times to experience the world of dating.

Life is grand that way, we experience, we learn, we try again.

Despite this amazing revelation on life, there are some things we cannot repeat nor try again. Having the measly 22 years behind me that I do, I can still remember a lot of my childhood.

Recently I have pondered frequently the time spent with my grandfather. When I was very young, I would spend summers, weeks at a time, with my grandparents at their cabin in the mountains. He always had about 100 different projects going at once, from gardening to construction, he was always, as he would say, “futzen” with something.

To spend the days I would wander around with the only neighbor girl for miles (consequently my first kiss), while he persistently told me not to disappear.

At night, my sister and I would sit at the dinner table for an extra half-hour because we never ate all our food. In tears, we cried for grandpa to let us go.

If our mom was nearby we knew we’d be safe, but on those summer trips without mom, we saw many sunsets from that table.

As difficult as it was to calm my curiosity (about the mountains) and stay near the house or not waste food and finish my meal, I’d give anything to be back at that point in time.

Instead of going swimming or wandering around the mountain, I would sit and talk about life with my grandpa. I could learn about his experience in the Pacific during World War II, or find out what it was like to go to DU in 1952 (He graduated almost 50 years ago).

I could even learn about the German culture in our family as we would try to make conversation out of what combined German we knew.

But unlike dance lessons or dating, I can’t go back to that point. As he lies in a hospital bed with his vital organs failing, trying to fight the pain that seizes his body every day, I know what time we do have will never be as long as the time that has already past.

I am grateful for the time I have had with my grandfather, it is more than some are allotted, and it will be treasured in my mind for the rest of my life, along with the framed University of Denver diploma that will hang next to mine.

Life is precious, not because of the time we have but because of who we get to spend that time with.

Yet, even when time is not on your side, there is usually some time you can work with.

I am looking forward to spring break, I’m going to see my grandfather, and enjoy the timewe still have to spend together.