Gratitude For A Gift

I'm pretty bummed out these days. My poor kitty is totally blind now, since his left eye went bad 10 weeks after we took out the right one due to glaucoma. For that and some minor personal medical stuff, I've been wallowing in self-pity, guilt, and general depression. 

But tonight I reconnected with a client I haven't seen in over 4 years, who has since developed a brutal, rare autoimmune disease. It has turned her life upside down. Not that I derive pleasure from the suffering of others, but while she sat there telling me all the things she had planned and now cannot do, I started feeling kind of small.

 Who am I to be sad and blue when I still have my health? Without that, everything is harder. Some things are no longer achievable.

It helped to remind me that I'm supposed to be thankful every day that I'm healthy. I was taking my health for granted, forgetting what a gift it is, and I'm ashamed of myself for that. It could change in the blink of an eye and then I'd be sorry I wasn't grateful before. Lesson learned.