What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
The tragic or the humorous is a matter of perspective.
- Arnold Beisser
A few days ago, I wrote about Erin’s brother-in-law getting a kidney transplant. The good news is that Burke’s doing just fine. He’s got a long recovery in front of him, but his new kidney is functioning well and properly, and we couldn’t ask for anything more.
Burke went home on Friday, and Erin’s sister, Amy, texted her yesterday morning to let us know that they’d spent the evening eating pizza and watching movies. It was good to know that they were able to enjoying some well-deserved quiet time; Lord knows they could use something resembling normalcy in their lives. I was also struck by how something as simple as a quiet evening at home with your spouse can be an exercise in perspective. Erin and I would look at an evening of pizza and movies at home on a Friday night would be boring and horribly unoriginal. After what Burke and Amy have been through, that probably (and understandably) seemed like something close to Paradise. Few people deserve to be able to celebrate the “simple” things in life more than they do.
Sometimes, we get so caught up in our lives and what we want to do next that we manage to lose sight of what we have now. I suppose one of the gifts of getting a kidney and a new lease on life is the opportunity to not only be around for the “little” things in life, but to appreciate them as well. For my part, it would be nice if it didn’t take someone you care about getting a new kidney to remind you of what’s truly important in life.
I never thought Christmas Day would be anticlimactic, but Christmas really did come early this year….
