It seems to be human nature to not truly appreciate what you have until you don’t have it. It doesn’t seem to matter so much whether you ever really had what you now want either, although if you’ve had and lost you know first hand what it was like which can certainly add to the longing. Sometimes it’s even the perception that you thought you had it, when in fact you never really did. Either way the result is the same, you simply appreciate things more if you associate a form of loss with it before.

This morning I stopped to visit with another mom at my son’s school. I have to admit that I don’t know her name or anything about her really. We’ve exchanged a few friendly smiles and hellos on the playground before school starts for our Kindergarten sons. Recently, she’s been coming in a wheelchair and with some assistance, again I don’t know what the circumstances are but I know my heart aches for her. So this morning when we met at the crosswalk on the way back to our cars I asked her how she was doing and she replied that she was hanging in there. I could hear the weight of it in her voice and I told her how seeing her reminded me of myself about 5 years ago when I too was in a wheelchair. And then the entire drive home I considered how blessed I truly am.

I pondered on three primary elements of my life where I got to experience what I’ll call the “Greater Appreciation Algorithm” or GAA for short. (How’s that for pithy?!) The first, thanks to my friend, was my health and ability to walk. This in turn leads to the greatest gift of how you view and thus live your life. Dealing with unknowns is terrifying and lonely, even when you’re surrounded by loved ones. During the three months I battled some bizarre and never defined illness, I experienced some deep soul searching and gratitude training. I learned to be grateful for pain because it meant I could still feel and was still alive. I learned to be grateful for the many years of unfettered freedom and health I’d enjoyed without notice. Consequently, I don’t view life the same way anymore, I recognize each day as the gift that it is determined to make the most of it. There are no certainties; you make the most of what you’ve got while you’ve got it or you die on a bed of regrets. Life is too short for petty offenses, too fragile for postmortems and too wonderful for despair. How grateful I am to have learned this all important lesson before I was 30.

The next thing I thought about was one of those perceived items; the ability to become a parent. Suffice it to say that control in all things parenting from becoming to being one is an illusion. The GAA part of this experience for me is the ability to be a better parent, to recognize more. One woman compared this to experiencing children more on the level of a grandparent because you have different eyes and understanding. There’s some truth in there. At any rate, I find myself being supremely grateful for these parenting eyes even though obtaining them wasn’t something I was so sure I was on board with during the trial and wait. And I am especially mindful of the blessing that the vision was granted before I had children so I could make the most of the short time I have them.

And finally I couldn’t help but consider the blessing of all things temporal. At the height of my personal health trial came the greatest financial storm of my marriage. My husband and I were so close to the edge of losing everything that to remember now still causes my heart to skip a beat. Up to this point, we felt a level of control and confidence in our temporal situation. We were putting money away in a few different retirement and savings programs, paying more than minimum on our consumer debt payments, making conservative big decisions on our home and cars, and enjoying the freedoms of being your own boss. Sounds great right? It was, right up to the point where the revenue stopped, and I do mean stopped - no trickling, no bleeding, just plain gone. Oh, and now we had a mountain of medical bills too. For six months we plugged holes, depleted resources and extended every ounce of credit waiting and hoping for a new job to be in the cards. Not surprising, the climb out of that hole was no small task. But you know what? You keep climbing. No bankruptcy was declared, bills were paid and life continued albeit a bit strained for a while. And what I learned from all of it was that there is a difference in managing your money and in really having money to manage. I learned that money is not just some means to an end, it is a blessing and a gift that enhances your life if you let it. I learned that perception is everything and I learned it before I was 40.

So you see why I consider myself thrice blessed. Each of these primary areas are major aspects of life and I can’t imagine living my life without the gifts of knowledge that are now mine. This morning I thank the sweet lady that comes to school in a wheelchair each day to see her son off. She is an important reminder of just how blessed I am and sometimes you need the reminder. Maybe there really is something to the “gaa gaa” thing. *wink*

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