Don't Take Anything for Granted

Life can change in a split second.

"appreciate what you have before it becomes what you had."

- Ana Leon

It seems impossible, right?

My son has a hoodie that is a perfect description of his focus and priorities. It says, “Ball is life.”

This kid has basketball running in his veins. Aside from his family and faith, NOTHING matters more to him. It is a love that developed early in his life and has blossomed with his effort, sacrifices, determination, and age. In middle school he was a multi-sport athlete. After his Freshman year of football, he decided to focus on basketball only so he could specialize, prevent injury, and play year round.

When we build our current home, we made a basketball court in our backyard so he wouldn’t have to travel for every workout. He has spent countless hours juking, drilling, jabbing, and “hooping.” I might add that I have done some time on the court rebounding, too! This is where he has spent time in all types of weather conditions, sometimes in the middle of the night after a bad loss, taking shot after shot to be better next time.

As I write this, he has three games left in his regular season of his high school career. As a Senior, he is writing a different story than we could have expected. On THE VERY DAY of tryouts, he was diagnosed with mono, only days after completing an antibiotic for strep throat. He had many tests done, and while I was grateful for the diagnosis of mono, which was in many ways the best case scenario, having had mono, I knew what this could mean for the season.

I watched my boy grow into a man as he put aside anything that was comfortable, like rest, quitting, or settling, and rise to the expectations he had for himself. He would sleep all weekend, have one on one coaching drills and running during practice and save every ounce of strength to leave it on the court during his games. HE NEVER MISSED ONE!

He is strong now, and thanks to great doctors, he told me two days ago that he felt 100%, but knew that 100% now was not the 100% that he could have had without the setback. He worked all summer to be conditioned and ready for the season, but thankfully, he was ready for another game.

Two days ago, he had a career-high game of thirty points against a team who beat us on our previous meetup. He was ON and absolutely lit up the court! We waited for him to come out of the locker room, congratulated him, took some pics, and sent him on his way to go eat with his buddies to celebrate the win.

About forty-five minutes later, he walked into the house and straight to the bathroom. About fifteen minutes later, he walked to my bedroom with a barf bowl and a face that seemed off. He said he left the restaurant early leaving most of his food behind. He puked in the parking lot and could hardly drive home.

A migraine set in and my 6’4” giant who had been on top of the world was parked in the middle of the family room floor, unable to move, resisting help, unable to speak because his head hurt. I set a timer for myself to check on him every 30 minutes or so. He didn’t want to move.

By about 4:00 am, he was vertical, able to eat some crackers and finally cut the tape off his ankles from the game. He showered, took medicine, and went to bed.

My Takeaway

I cannot help but think of the drastic swing he experienced from being on top of the world to being unable to move, all within an hour.

I think there is a lesson to learn from every experience we have. Don’t take life and what you have RIGHT NOW for granted!! You never know when the tide will change and we will be faced with challenges that are unthinkable at this moment.

Do you have life insurance? Have you disciplined yourself to have an emergency fund? If you couldn’t make it to work for the next two weeks, how would it impact your family? Today and every day, promise to protect your loved ones!!

“If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear!”