Randy Stinson counts time with marbles. He doesn't multiply them for moments passed — that would require A LOT of marbles — he subtracts. At the start of every week, he throws a round orb into the trash. The number of marbles in his desk-top jar shrinks by one each Monday. And the few that remain mark time: one marble for each week he has with his eldest daughter before she goes off to college. The plink, plink of a marble dropping to the bottom of a pail is an audible reminder, as tangible as the progressively lower level in his marble jar. Both remind him to make the most of what time remains.

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