The Best Things in Life
Life becomes precious and more special to us when we look for the little everyday miracles and get excited about the privileges of simply being human. – Tim Hansel
Article written by Alex Blackwell. Connect with me on Facebook.
My son’s friend died on Thanksgiving morning. Andrew, my younger son, visited Alex in the hospital almost every week during his illness. For the last two weeks, Andrew spent his evenings at Alex’s house along with several other 17 and 18-year-olds playing video games and eating pizza while their friend watched and listened.
This group of young men must have brought life and a sense of normalcy to a house preparing for the worst. Thursday morning Andrew received a text message informing him it was over. His friend was gone now. There’s no doubt Andrew will be changed forever.
Andrew honored Alex before our Thanksgiving meal. He toasted his life and his courage. My son said he was thankful Alex was his friend. I could sense Andrew was struggling to understand the meaning of his death.
Sitting at the table with my family, I was thankful we were together and healthy. Life does not come with a guarantee or a schedule. We are often forced to live Life on its terms. It’s a dance that is sometimes exuberant and is sometimes somber. When the dance becomes both, the melancholy of the moment provides the opportunity to take an inventory of the things we do have and to ignore what’s missing or what we think we should have.
The best things in life aren’t the things we have, but rather who we get to share these things with. The best things in my life were sitting with me on Thanksgiving Day. With my family, everything else is all the sweeter:
- The morning’s first cup of coffee
- Hearing good news
- A parking space close to the door on a rainy day
- Becoming less of a parent and more of a friend with Brandon
- Mid-October in Kansas City and its display of changing leaves – simply beautiful
- Resisting the pull back to a place where I no longer want to live
- Blasting my favorite song on the car radio
- An unexpected compliment
- Reading a good book on the beach
- A cold beer at a baseball game
- Fresh sheets on the bed
- Feeling Mary Beth next to me every night
- Sunday dinners with the family
- Giving a gift from the heart and then savoring the reaction
- Hearing the first Christmas song of the season
- The peacefulness of the early morning
- My father-in-law’s recipe for spaghetti sauce
- Feeling confident and letting the world know it
- Learning to hunt with Andrew
- A hot bath on a cold night
- Saying, “I love you.”
- New York City with Caitlin
- Reconciling and starting over with my sister
- Picking the fastest moving checkout line at the grocery store
- Forgiving and letting go of my mother
- The feeling after a workout
- The wok-roasted chicken and Sushi at my favorite Asian restaurant
- The guilty please of watching Glee with MB and the girls
- The 20-minute commute each morning to consider the promise of the day
- A series of green lights on my way back home
- The welcome-home kiss
- Sitting on the couch with Rascal curled up next to me
- Being surprised
- Witnessing Emily’s confidence soar
- Helping my father heal
- Falling asleep to the rain
- A Diet Pepsi once (maybe twice) a week
- Feeling free from the past
- Believing my faith will return after a setback
- Sharing family stories when the six of us are together
- Remembering to play more
- The smell of popcorn
- Hearing “I love you.”
- Feeling that I am enough
- Carving out time to write everyday
- Providing the basics, plus a little more for my family
- Appreciating exactly what I have
What are some of the best things in your life? Please consider sharing in Comments below.
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9 Responses to “The Best Things in Life”
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There are countless things small and large to be thankful for each day. We only need to make ourselves aware and if we do not life will pass us by. Stephen Leacock put it nicely:
“Why are we such fools – such tragic fools? How strange it is, our little procession of life. The child says, ‘when I am a big boy’. But what is that? the big boy says, ‘when I grow up’. And then, grown up, he says, ‘when I get married’. But to be married, what is that after all? The thought changes to, ‘when I retire’. And then when retirement comes, he looks back over the landscape traversed; a cold wind seems to sweep over it; somehow he has missed it all, and it is gone. Life, we learn too late, life is in the living, in the tissue of every day and hour”.
Wonderful Article , I liked the morning`s first cup of coffee , the welcome-home kiss and diet pepsi once in a while
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Hmmm good one. Forgiving and letting go of my mother.
Be happy if you didn’t have to know this and feel blessed if you did this before they pass. Closer is comforting and the good feeling never passes.
@ Grandpa Ken: Thanks for sharing the Stephen Leacock passage. The like the phrase “in the tissue of every day.” So true, living is that granular.
@ Lakshmi: For me, the coffee is way more important than the Diet Pepsi.
@ Susan: I am welcoming the good feeling – thanks.
You’re right. The best things in life, like the things you’ve mentioned, are the things that make us feel truly alive, that we are living this very moment that we are given. We smell that coffee, we hear each other’s laughter, we feel our friends’ embrace – these are the best things indeed.
@ Jocelyn: Smell the coffee indeed.
I’m thankful for the beauty of the peacock that sits outside my bedroom window every morning,Plus all my other animals.I’m thankful for my man who helps pay for feed and never complains.
Thank you for reminding us of these things. We often get caught up in the rush of everyday life that we tend to forget the little moments that flit by. In retrospect, they turn out to be the most special. It’s true…when we start appreciating the littlest and simplest things, we get to live life more.
Hearing my favorite song, watching a good movie, feeling safe when I’m home, laughing with my family, eating good food, giving more by helping out when I can — these are some of the things that help me appreciate life more.
Just thought I’d add one to the list … Happy people that light a room with their warmth, smile, or laugh. Definitely one of the best things in life.