The author Susan Sontag faced multiple health challenges in her lifetime, including several cancers, once wrote, "Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship in the kingdom of the well and the kingdom of the sick." I was reminded of this recently after several of my best friends faced serious health challenges or had family members facing these events.
There is nothing more important in life than health because health means freedom to pursue one's wishes, dreams, and goals without limitation. Unfortunately, we often lose sight of this and take life for granted. My former Chairman of Medicine from Southwestern, Dr. Daniel Foster, was a metabolism experiment. Dr. Foster always said life is merely about generating high energy phosphate bonds to make ATP, the fuel of the cell. However, after 9/11, he changed his mind and simply said, "Life is until further notice."
I thought about those words as I visited my friend in the hospital last weekend and as I comforted another friend whose dad died quickly after a recurrence of his cancer. My problems and stresses truly felt minuscule in comparison - a fact that I appreciated last week more than at any time in my life.
There can be no happiness if one has never experienced sadness. Likewise, loss can make one appreciate all the things one has to be grateful for. Life is a gift, and I will do my best to remember that each and every day.
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