Living Takes A Lot Of Work

While Dieing Seems To Be Quite Easy...


LAST year, about this time, I was trying to convince myself that I was healthy enough to go get on an airplane and travel over to visit my mom in Alabama for a week.

LAST year, about a day later, I was taking a sixty mile ride in an ambulance, on my way to being admitted to a hospital in South Alabama.

LAST year, about this time, my family was learning that I was deathly ill with massive blood clotting in my kidneys, liver, and intestines--courtesy of an inherited blood disorder that tries to make my blood turn into something with the consistency of Jello about every four or five years.

LAST year about this time, I was in a drug induced coma of pain and delirium, and my Mother, Sister, and girlfriend Pat were in tears around me and my agony, prepared from me to die.

THEN suddenly, and without explanation, God's hand reached down and healed me and relieved my suffering.

FIFTEEN days later--after six days in intensive care and nine days in a regular room without much of a view, they sent me home a with pant load of prescriptions and a bill for about ninety thousand dollars.

I honestly can't say that I deserved it (the recovery, not the bill), because the effort might have been better spent on someone much more worthy than I, but in the end--I have to admit that I was willing to take the offer.

AND...

SINCE my sudden and miraculous recovery, I have sincerely spent most of my time trying to not waste the opportunity.

THIS year I'm still here and stronger than I've been in at least a decade.

THIS year I'm still working as a volunteer in the community to help those that have fewer blessings than myself.

THIS year I'm trying to be a better son, brother and life partner that I have been in the days and years before, recognizing that each and every day I live is a privelege and a GIFT, and I can't always count on having another one.

AFTER all, when it is all said and done, all there is is just TODAY...

AND...I hope that yours is a good one...