Looking up through the palm trees in Kaua’i. Taken June 4, 2005.

This morning I am thinking heavily of the fragilty of life, although this reality is not something that ever ventures far from my consciousness. I have known too many people who have faced cancer, died in car accidents and from heart attacks, had brain tumors, MS and other assorted illnesses and tragedies. Each and every day I wake up and remind myself not to take the day before me for granted, because one never knows how quickly the pendulum might swing in a devastating direction.

It sounds like such a mundane and unromantic answer, but whenever I think of what I am most thankful for, the same thing always comes up: my health, and the health of those I love. I think it is the one thing that can strike us most unaware, most unprotected and leave us the most vulnerable. With any other problems in life – financial, relationship/marital, family, career – a certain end will come to whatever is troubling us and the tide will eventually turn in a more positive direction. Time can heal all wounds, as they say, and fortunes can be rebuilt. With health problems, there is more uncertainty and I believe, at some point, much more reliance on faith and perhaps even prayer. Someone very dear to me faced Stage Four Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2001 and was given a 20% chance of survival. After 12 weeks of chemotherapy, he was clean and the doctors were stunned. I asked him how he got through it and he said "Five things: prayer, prayer, prayer, prayer and my friends." He is still doing great. Those must have been some kick-ass prayers.  (P.S. "Dear God, Thank you for answering those prayers, and mine too. Love, Christine.")

Sometimes it is easier to look at situations such as these and say, "OK, he was supposed to go through this to learn more about himself and life and shift the path he was on. Something wonderful came from the experience." Then there are other situations I witness and I want to look up at the sky and scream a simple one word prayer: "WHY?!" Over the last year I have had to look hard at what my grandma has been going through to find something – anything – positive. I have been angry, felt helpless and have admittedly been in a bit of a state of denial, not wanting to talk about it, think about it or face it. I look at pictures of her and it is as if an iron cloak envelops me, weighing down my shoulders and making me breathe heavier. I close my eyes and try to envision the pain washing away from me, like a foamy tide returning to the waves, and my eyes sting.

I have these moments – these moments where I just feel sad for the suffering we all have to go through at times. I know this sadness will pass, just as the gleeful joy I felt riding my bike along the Venice boardwalk yesterday passed. All the good and bad comes and goes; all the light eventually gives way to darkness and sometimes the darkness makes it almost impossible to see where we are going. But it always passes, just as we will, in our own way and our own time and hopefully, with our own deep understanding of the beauty and magic of every teeny tiny moment we are here, with each other, making our way.

"Tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life." – Mary Oliver.