If Tomorrow Wasn't Guaranteed, What Would Really Matter Today?

With all of the demands of everyday life, I am just as guilty as the next person of not always remembering to be grateful.

This is what gratitude can look like. A moment captured between my daughter and her dad who are overcome with emotion, feeling thankful and appreciative for the simple fact that they could both be present for this day.

Only a few weeks before, her dad had suffered a medical emergency that required her and her siblings to be brought to the hospital to say goodbye before he was transported to a more advanced facility, just in case. I observed terrified looks in their eyes as they hugged and kissed their dad goodbye not knowing if it was the last time they'd see him.They tried to be brave and hold back the tears but they began to spill out before they could leave the room.

They looked me in the eye asking me if their dad was going to be ok. I could only tell them that I did not know, because that was the truth. I couldn't fix this, or even give reassurance that our lives would ever be the same; it was a time of uncertainty. In those moments, all of the mundane things and disagreements didn't matter anymore; all we all wanted was for him to survive.

If only we could hang onto these moments of gratitude, of feeling so thankful and appreciative. The moments when the realization that none of our tomorrow's are guaranteed. Maybe we would stop putting off being "happy until" because "until" may never come. Maybe we would wake up with the simple appreciation for just that, that we woke up. It is so easy to lose sight of one simple fact: each of us has only so many minutes and seconds on this planet, and most of us don't know when we'll go.