I took life for granted. Most of us probably do. We go from day to day and never really stop to realize how precious life is. That changed for me on my wife's birthday, August 5th, 2004, the day I died.

We had planned to spend the entire day together, shopping and then lunch, a movie, more shopping, dinner and more shopping or another movie. Nothing went the way I planned it, we never even left the house together.

Nobody knew that at 8:45 AM I would suffer a massive heart attack and my wife Judith and our daughter Brittany would watch me take my last breath, and turn blue. Never thought about dying. Never even considered it. The paramedics arrived and saved my life for the first time. They rushed me to the hospital where Judith was told that there was a 10% chance that I would live 2 more hours!

A 10% chance that I would live it 2 hours? That's it? My lifeless body was in the emergency room and my wife was by my side, touching my face and hands and trying to tell me how much she loved me. There was no way I was going to make it out of that hospital alive and everybody knew it. Well, almost everybody.

My wife and many of our friends began to pray. Make no mistake about it I received expert medical care, but every Doctor that took care of me knew that it was just a matter of time. After 8 days in intensive care I regained consciousness for the first time. Technically I had been conscious before that but I have no memory of those days at all.

When you are on your death bed you will not think about work or traffic or all of the stuff that we spend so much time worrying about. You will think about your eternal destination and you will think about your family and nothing else.

I wrote this to help one person realize that we take life for granted. Maybe you are that one person. As we get older (I'm 48 today) we go to more funerals and say goodbye to more of our friends. Most of us go through our lives and never contemplate the things in life that are really important. We take so many things for granted as if our friends and family members will be around forever.

Hopefully you will tell somebody that you love, just how much they mean to you today! Perhaps you will forgive someone because you realize that bitterness and anger are a waste of precious time. Maybe you will speak a little sweeter or hug a little more often.

This was not written to give you the impression that I am a perfect person, living a perfect life. Far from it, but things changed for me the day I died. Hopefully through my experience you will begin to realize what I now understand, life is precious, none of us are guaranteed another breath, and the stuff that we worry about so much of the time, really means nothing at all.

Ask somebody on their death bed what they want the most, and the answer is time! You've got time right now, we hope you make the most of it, because you never know when your time will run out.

About the Author

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