You know you’ve been left with a tough lot to hoe when your good friend calls to tell you her husband has another tumor, has already had a stem cell transplant and yet, she’d still rather have her life than yours!

We laughed SO HARD over that one.

No one wanted what I had, including me! My worst fears were my reality.

My friend and I cried together, too. Few cried with me like she did. She had endured many years of trials and challenges she’d never expected; she’d had to adjust her dreams accordingly, and she felt my pain like few could. Interesting, isn’t it? That our unexpected lives have a way of helping us develop empathy and compassion in a way nothing else is able to. Although I would never wish hardship on anyone, what a blessing my friend was to me because of all she had endured and risen above.

And the best part about being with her and knowing her family challenges was that her situation made me simply grateful to be alive. To have a life to live, unexpected as it was. Because not everyone has that option.

“I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.” (Agatha Christie)

Grand indeed.