alive

"Do you know what today is??" LG bellows from his office.
I roll back in my chair until I'm in his line of sight.
"Its July 18 - but other than that, no."

"Two years ago today I got run over by a Semi," he announces. "I just realized that when I wrote the date down. "

LG had a long, hard row of recovery to hoe. Just last fall he had to have another reparitive surgery on his leg, and there was a significant chance that it would have to be amputated. He works hard and plays hard, and his 6'5'' former basketball player's frame wasn't really given the time it needed to recover.

Now he is walking without his cane and (more significantly) without a limp.

"What are you doing tonight?" I holler back. "You definitely need to celebrate being alive."

Being alive is wonderful and probably the biggest thing I take for granted. Oftentimes we hardly stop to think about how close we all are to not being alive.
Being alive is pain, it is exhilaration, it is suffering, it is knowing love, joy, laughter, despair, and all of the myriad emotions in between those.

Tonight I think I'll celebrate being alive, too.