Today is a gift

My 40 yr old niece had heart failure and is now in a coma. Yesterday she was taken off life support. She is now breathing on her own and we wait. She became a widow three years ago when her husband fell asleep at the wheel, driving home from work. The stress from all of that didn't help her. Her heart failure really came as a surprise to us. Also, her young adult daughter, who was married last year, is three months pregnant. The daughter has to make life and death decisions concerning her mother. My sister has to watch her daughter in a coma. I am really appreciating my family each day.
I know how fragile life is. I've lost both of my parents to heart disease. I do everything in my power to make good life choices so I'll be around a long time for my children. I think this not only includes diet and exercise, but also meditation or some sort of stress release. Life is meant to be fun. Laughter has been proven to be very healing. Music is also food for the soul. I try to limit myself from focusing on all the bad news, etc. As it is, stress sometimes throws itself at you whether you like it or not. The key is how you deal with it. My sister was telling us how she wanted to donate her skeleton to a med school. I added that it might be interesting to do the same but before that I wanted my skeleton to be tied up to strings like a marionette's puppet and danced around. Sure that's crazy talk but it did lighten the moment for my great-niece who has been suffering for a week now since her mother has been in a coma.
Situations like this really bring home the fact that life is a gift. I see life as a string of pearls. It is one long string of beautiful shiny todays.