Existence vs living – a vital difference

It was the night of my church’s annual Fathers and Sons Campout. My dad regrettably could not come because he was sick with a throbbing headache.

So I went alone.

I really didn’t think much of it. What was the worst thing that could happen? I would just come home the next morning, take a long shower to clean my dirt-caked skin, give my mom and dad a hug and a kiss, then life would resume as normal.

How naïve I was.

I was at the campfire, just outside the glowing light of the fervent flame, when the call came. It was my sweet mother, informing me that a good family friend would be coming to pick me up immediately, and that Christopher, my brother, just flew in from Utah.

Something was wrong.

My mind was racing, my pulse quickening, the gears of my consciousness attempting to comprehend what was going on.

What could be so urgent as to merit my mother to fly my brother home in the year of his grueling junior core accounting program?

I wanted answers.

I needed answers.

And I found them… at the Sutter Roseville Intensive Care Unit.

As I entered that stuffy, small room, I saw my dad lying on an uncomfortable hospital bed. My world came crashing down around me.

There were tubes in his mouth, foreign machines were beeping that were connected to my father at various places up and down his arms and legs. My skin tone faded to match his – pale and cold.

Tears rolled down my face that matched the ones on my mother’s and brother’s. It occurred to me that this story might not have a happy ending, that not everything would turn out perfect.

One-and-a-half months in the ICU, two intra-venal brain surgeries, several near-fatal allergic reactions, abounding MRAs and CAT scans, a month of rehabilitation – and countless tears – later, my dad was sent home, having miraculously survived a diagnosis of “Dural Sinus Thrombosis in the presence of Inter-Cranial Hypotension.” (Only two other people in medical history have had this diagnosis.)

Yet I will always remember how at that campfire, my biggest worry was that my marshmallow wouldn’t be that perfect shade of golden brown, or that the bothersome kid on the trip might interrupt the important game of Egyptian Rat-Slap I was playing with my friends.

Nothing could happen, right? I was invincible. My dad was invincible.

I realized that I had, throughout my 16 years of existence, slowly and gradually lost perspective on life. I was so sure that life was a concrete block, an absolute that may get a chip in it every once in a while, but would never crumble.

Life is anything but concrete.

It is a glass sculpture – beautiful, precious, yet extremely fragile. I have seen it shatter, then piece itself together again.

No longer will I take anything for granted. I have learned the hard way to appreciate life to its fullest, and by appreciating it, I have learned to live it to its fullest.

Before…I existed.

Now…I live.