Fragile humanity

This weekend was a rough one. A few people I care about showed evidence of testing or slowly losing their mortality.

When I heard "snowboarding accident" and "hit a tree" and "fractured vertebrae" I choked. Who recovers from such an accident? How do you slide into a tree with your head and not die?

Well, he did. Thank God. After surviving a 5+ hour surgery and hours of recovery in ICU he survived. And he kept his mobility...for the most part.

He gained some new "bling" in the form of bolts and plates in his neck, but he is alive.

Now I'm sure he's having a hard time trying to figure out how to do his daily life with this huge neck and torso brace. It can't be easy. Life will be different for awhile, maybe forever. But in his usual strong and heroic fashion, he's living to tell the story. Over and over again...to all his visitors who can't believe this actually happened.

And then there is grandma. She's been battling cancer for years. But now it seems her body is rapidly declining. If it's not pneumonia, side effects from chemotherapy, it's a stroke. Talk about taking one day at a time. It's exhausting for me. I can only imagine what it is like for her children. My father and his sisters. And especially how tiring it is for grandma.

But really, aren't we all dying? Isn't that what aging is? Don't we risk our life every time we cross the street or touch the filth-ridden shopping cart handle? Aren't our bodies slowly dying every day?

I guess that's the real truth about mortality. It really is fleeting. I guess all we can do is live each year, month, day, and moment like it's our last. Or rather our first. Live each day anew.

At least that's what I'm choosing to learn from this weekend. Each breath is a blessing.