Realization

Tonight I went to a spaghetti supper at the elementary school. I sat one table over from a cherubic seven-year-old boy who has been given two to six months to live, due to an inoperable brain tumor. The dinner was in his honor, a benefit to raise money for a last-chance medical procedure not covered by the family's insurance. I watched him tucking in to his plate of spaghetti, as bright-eyed and chipper as any of the kids there, his swollen face the only real giveaway to his medical condition.

His parents sat on either side of him, smiling and clearly grateful for the community support. His mother's eyes looked tired. I can only begin to imagine what she has been through, and where her mind must take her late at night when her little boy is sleeping.
At the end of a day like today, you make sure to give your kids that extra hug, to say "I love you" out loud instead of just thinking it.
I'm going to stop bitching about minutae long enough to give thanks that little insignificant things are really all I have to complain about. Things like the drearily persistent winter weather, my favorite pants not fitting the way I think they should, or the fact that my cat was apparently born with an extra chromosome that enables Continuous Shedding...those are gravy, baby.

I'm pretty damn lucky, and today I'd like to both acknowledge that and say thank you.