Taking things for granted

I'm watching 'Money' on BBC2 about people with a household income of 40k.  One family has a son who has cerebral palsy.  They have got to go out and raise 60k in order to fund an operation on his spine.  They have debt, but their main priority is getting the money to help their son.  The mum is in tears when she talks about seeing 'normal' children and having to fight to get him the operation.


In the past I've taken everything for granted.  My family, my job, my income, my own health and the health of my husband and children, my home.  


It is very strange when things begin to slip through your fingers.  What were problems a year ago are trivial now.


Every day there are people out there who are having children diagnosed with serious illness.  Every day there are people trying desperately to raise the money that might help their child to survive.  There was a fund local to me recently that needed to raise 125k for a teenage girl to have surgery for a brain tumour in America. It was the only thing left that they could try.


Life is incredibly cruel.  Money and being denied things because of it is incredibly cruel.  Such is life, I suppose, but that doesn't make it any easier when your children are on the receiving end of total crap.


I am trying to be grateful for the small things now.