It’s funny how one single event can stop you dead in your tracks and command 100% of your attention. This past weekend was my wife’s birthday so we cleaned up the house (only so that we could make a mess in it, oddly enough) and set up the back yard for a campout, complete with tents, a campfire, s’mores and an DVD projector shining movies on the side of the house (after all, it is 2013). With plenty of food and a host of close friends and family coming over to celebrate with us, my wife and I were gearing up to have an awesome weekend.

This is, surprisingly, not the single event I was referring to just a moment ago that would stop me dead in my tracks and command 100% of my attention, because at about 8 pm on Friday evening I began to suffer through the beginning stages of what most call the “stomach flu,” which as I have learned since is actually not a flu at all but rather a virus known as Gastroenteritis (now you know). I ended up missing the party completely and spent the following 48 hours learning a new definition of misery that cannot be described in words; those of you who have experienced such pain yourselves know this inexplicable misery of which I speak, and for those of you who haven’t I pray that you never experience such horror.

Seriously though, it was completely miserable. Between shaking and sweating feverishly I couldn’t walk, let alone stand, talk, think, eat, drink… I felt like I was dying and, to be honest, after 12 or so hours of feeling this way I actually began to welcome the notion that death would in fact end this torment. Somehow the pain subsided eventually and the grip of this cruel virus released me from its clenches sometime Sunday afternoon, and for the first time in what seemed like an eternity I could find peace; peace that I had reached the light at the end of the tunnel; peace that I had survived. Peace at last!

I’m sure you think that I’m overreacting here, but I’m not kidding. I actually felt good for the first time in DAYS and I almost cried it felt so good. And here’s the funny thing – I didn’t feel good because something good had happened to me but rather because something bad wasn’t happening anymore. I was just plain NORMAL again and it was the best news I had ever received. Which got me to thinking…

I actually did a lot of thinking and soul-searching during my fever-indulged delusions of the past few days, and I came to this conclusion: the smallest things are often the ones we take most for granted, and when they’re gone our whole world comes crashing in. Something as seemingly simple as our health can alter the outcome of our work, our plans, our lives, and also those around us (my wife partied on, but I’m sure she missed me – I think). Even though I’ve heard it a million times before that if you “don’t have your health, you don’t have anything,” this weekend I experienced what that means. I had nothing. Purely nothing.

Besides diligently washing my hands with warm water and soap for 15-20 seconds before meals, I learned something else this weekend that I hope to carry with me for the rest of my life. Everything that we have at the moment is neither promised nor guaranteed to last, so we need to enjoy and appreciate them while we have them. Most of these things are seemingly small, as if they have always been there and always will be there: our health, our passions, our securities, our goals and plans, our friends and loved ones; anything can be altered in a single instant in such a way that it will stop you dead in your tracks. You won’t be ready for it and it won’t be easy and it most likely will feel unbearable. Don’t take any of those things for granted, and always be comforted by the fact that at least you have them, even when you feel like you have nothing else.