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I was recently reminded that no matter what you do, you can not take anything in life, for granted.
Last week, as I got home from work, I got a call from my brother. I thought he was calling to give me the number of tickets he needs for my friends and family back home. Instead, I’m shocked as he begins to tell me that they had to rush my mom to the ER for severe chest pains and shortness of breath. He passes the phone to my sister-in-law, who is an ER nurse and she continues to tell me the rest of the symptoms. I know right away that they feel it is a heart attack. As soon as I drop the phone I grab my keys and take off on the two hour drive back home. I’m scared to death that I’m going to lose my mom and many things thing pop into my head. First, is regret for not calling and visiting as much as I should, and then I start to dread what life would be like without her. My mom is the nicest person you will ever meet. She is one of the most caring people I know. Fear, sadness, anger, remorse, are all some of the emotions I’m feeling at this point.
This eventually leads me to the thought “I knew it”. I have been talking to mom about leading a healthy lifestyle and getting in to shape for a number of years now, but it never happens. She was thin when she was younger and never had to work at it. She could eat and do what she wanted. Eventually this catches up to everyone ,of course, and she was no exception. She has a number of health problems including recently being diagnosed with the beginning stages of congestive heart failure (CHF) In spite of this, she told me that she didn’t really think that she was that bad off. She took it for granted that everything was fine and she was going anywhere for a while. The though of dying never even crossed her mind.
I talked to my dad who was there with her as they ran the battery of tests, and he told me that it doesn’t appear to be a heart attack but a complication from the CHF. She had not been taking her medication like she was supposed to. This caused basically a fluid overload on her heart and resulted in the symptoms that she felt. Further tests would prove that this was the case.
“Thank God!” I thought as I had been praying the whole drive in. I saw her, and we had a long talk in the hospital room. We talked about life, faith, hard work, and dedication. These are the things that are most important in life. I learned alot from this episode, first of which is no matter what you do in life, don’t ever take anything for granted. Don’t get caught up in the repitition of everyday life and forget about what is important. Live with a purpose, have faith, make those whom you care about count in your life, and work hard to accomplish your goals.
I want to thank God for keeping my mom safe and all my friends and teammates who were praying for her through it all. It’s great to be part of a team like this.
It is perspective checks like this that keep us honest with ourselves as to what is truly important. And sadly, too often those lessons are forgotten as soon as the crisis passes. This was a very moving blog, brother. I choked up a bit…
I lost my dad at a young age. You are 100% right, dont ever take a second for granted. Im glad to hear everything is OK, and I’ll keep praying. Cant wait to see your next fight, B-RYNO.
we lost my wifes grandmother dec 23, 2008. she was the glue that held their family together. this was rough on all of us. due to her passing so close to christmas my wife and i weren’t able to go to my families house for christmas. after the funeral for her we sat out to my grandfathers house for new years celebration. this was january 2, 2009. we had been in town about 15 minutes when i got a call from my mother saying that my 20 year old brother just got killed in a work related accident. we had 2 deaths in our family back to back. the thing that hurts the most about my brother is he called me while i was on my way down there and told me he wanted to leave his job early. i told him to stick with it since he had already put in a two weeks notice. i told him it would reflect better on him if he fulfulled his notice. my brother never made it out of that shop.
this is a perfect example as to why you shouldn’t take our family and friends for granted. you just never know when their time is up and the lord calls them home. life comes and goes so quickly without alot of us even noticeing. my advice to any of you is to slow down and look at what we take for granted and make an effort to change our ways. learn to be thankful for what we have and never take it for granted.