Lesson for life

Last week, I was coming back home from school. I was about to open the door when my dad suddenly opened it for me. A smile automatically came to my face and we said hello.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Um, to the hospital” His voice sounded normal as he replied, but I knew he was hiding his preoccupation, as he usually does.
“Why? What happened?” I asked again, curious.
“David got shot”
My mind went blank and my brain needed a few extra seconds to process my dad’s words, to actually get what he was saying. When I finally got it back together and realized what had happened, confusion entered my mind as the shock started to leave.
“What? What do you mean? Where?” I had so many questions I didn’t even know where to start.
David is my godfather. He has been one of my parent’s best friends since they entered college and he has been basically a part of my family since I can remember.
He is one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met and he absolutely loves to eat. He has a heart that I think it’s maybe too big for his own body. And let me tell you, he is not a small person.
After hearing how desperate I was, my dad started to tell me how it all happened.
“Some guys broke into his house in the morning and when David saw them, one of the guys shot him on the right side of his stomach”.
“Oh my God! Is he okay?”
“Well, before they left, the same guy shot him again, only, this time, in the head. Fortunately, the bullet went towards his ear. He’s alright, but he is going to have to stay in the hospital for quite a long time, plus, he almost dies. So mentally, he’s not okay”.
I couldn’t believe what had just happened. One minute you’re alive and happy and the next, who knows.
On Saturday, I finally got the chance to go see him. I entered the room he was in and saw his mother. I said hi as usual but this time it felt a little awkward. This time, the air in the room was not normal. It felt kind of heavy, as if all the stress that had come along with the incident had mixed with it and made it that much more heavy. I continued my way towards David to say hello. But his face was different; the smile I usually saw in it was not there this time. He had bruises and those tubes they put into your nose with oxygen so you can breathe better. Not just that, but everything else surrounding him made him look so… bad. It made my heart ache a little.
He and my dad started talking, but he didn’t say much. He didn’t feel like talking. He looked tired and depressed.
“You know…” His eyes started to fill with tears and his voice was trembling. It scared me a little, I guess. I had never seen him cry before. “It’s funny, but when people say that you don’t know what you have until you lose it, they are so right. Things as little as going to the bathroom by yourself are so important. Just the pleasure of eating every day, in peace, or being able to work and leave a normal life is so basic but yet so important. And we don’t realize it. We don’t realize how wrong we are by giving material things the importance we should be giving to other things, like family and friends and love. Everything else is just extra”.
I felt like crying too because I knew how right he was. And we hear people say that over and over again but we never listen anymore.  We get used to having everything and, still, we are always asking for more. We should be grateful every day, just because we are given one more chance to a new take a step towards our dreams, or one more chance to watch the sun set, or one more chance to tell people how much we love them.  
When I realized how much it would mean for me to lose David, I realized that things can change when we least expect it. We can lose people in a blink of an eye and then regret things we didn’t say or didn’t do. So live every day as if it was your last and love the people around you as strongly and truthful as you can. Even though is hard now and then, trust me, at the end, it’s always worth it.