What recent experience has made you appreciate something that you ordinarily take for granted?

My mum had a baby girl along with three boys, tragically, my sister died at just 6 weeks old, born with a hole in her heart. I was only 4yrs old at the time & have no memory of her. Later, my mum & dad were divorced, leaving her to bring up us three on her own.
Now, i’d never take her for granted, but maybe what her life must have been like in those bleak circumstances. She very rarely talks about those events, which must have shaped most of her early adult life & in no way has she let it define her, she’s amazingly happy & loads of fun, but sometimes I just think wow mum, you’re my fucking hero!

The end of my marriage made me appreciate the loving support of my friends.

Reading Ucme’s story above—I’ll never take him for granted again. He lays down some serious shizzle here; but that story has made me appreciate him for reasons other than the shizzle ;-)

@picante Yeah, not like me to be serious & i’m not one for gushing testimonials, but it felt right at the time, as usual…no regrets :¬)

My wife had a terrible cancer scare over the summer. Until that happened I didn’t realize how much I take my family just plain being here for granted.

When I was younger, I got home from school and was waited on and taken care of by my maternal grandmother. Last year, my step father’s mom who has Alzheimer’s came to live with us. I instantly switched from being taken care of to being the care giver. I never realized how much my grandmother did for me until I had to be the one taking care of someone.

I also took my health for granted. I was a generally healthy person until this summer everything spiraled out of control. I got mono, then once school started I became very stressed out. The stress caused TMJ problems and carpal tunnel. The anti inflammatory pills for my wrist inflammation gives me terrible stomach pains. Then, about two months ago, I got attacked by a pitbull and was given antibiotics. These antibiotics gave me a yeast infection. I cured the yeast infection, and the puncture wounds from the bite are now healed. However my wrist and jaw are still extremely painful, and therefore also my stomach. Recently I have somehow developed a painful fingernail infection. There is more information about my nail in a question I asked.

I broke my ankle badly on the 14th of November 2012. I walked very slowly for the first time since the accident a few days ago. Walking is agony though, I’m on strong painkillers and can only walk short distances. My pysiotherapist told me it will be about 6 months til I’m fully back to normal.
So I guess I’ve taken mobility for granted. Because not being able to get out and about, jog, ride a bike, drive or play sports is a right pain in the ass.

This winter has been especially hard on my family, financially. We’ve been without heat twice so far, and one of those times was for two weeks. We made do with space heaters, but could never really get warm, even with jackets and blankets. It made me realize how much I take just plain old physical comfort for granted.

It also gave me a fresh burst of gratitude. We have friends who loaned us space heaters and other friends who sent us an electric blanket, which touched me beyond belief. Most of all, I’m thankful that at least we have shelter. So many people are living on the streets during the winter. If we were cold and uncomfortable, how much worse for them. :(

The fridge, man! So fuckin, this morning I wake up to the sound of what sounded like a muffled car horn. I’m like, what in tarnations is that dang awful sound? It was my refrigerator. The side of the fridge was burning hot, and the motor was making that godawful sound. Inside the fridge, it was barely cold at all, and it smelled all weird and gross.

Now this is an old fridge, I bought it from an elderly lady almost ten years ago, and when SHE got it new, that was like, before I was even BORN. She charged me 75 smackeroos for it, it was a steal. But man, that old thing was a war hero, wielding a sword and bringing down legion upon legion before its feet. Served me damn fine for years. Big huge blocky yellow box with wooden handles. Heavy enough to crush an immortal war horse.

But sadly, this morning, it died. It was no longer producing cold, the side of it was hot as Hell…I’m like, so…what do I do now? I turned off the cooling, and started to make plans. I mean, you need a fridge. I don’t know dick about appliances, but I know enough to realize that the motor was shot. do these things even have motors?

I know a guy who owns his small business, selling and fixing computers. But he sells all sorts of things. TV’s, appliances…he teamed up with a buddy of his who had his own appliance store, now they work together in the same store. But even so, I wasn’t expecting to find a new refrigerator for under 600 bucks. All the ones he has in there are these big fancy chrome double door fridges that when you open them, there’s a path to the Solomon Islands inside. And I really have no money these days. 600 was as high as I could go, and even then I was being generous.

I figured I could probably find a used one cheap somewhere, except I didn’t know WHERE…so before looking up websites and phone numbers, I went to see this guy. Well as luck would have it, he keeps all the cheaper fridges in the back where you can’t really see them. But we know each other pretty good, and he wanted to help. He had this little white fridge, very simple and basic. Nothing fancy, but it was new. He sold it to me for 275 dollars. I was MORE than happy. Not only that, but he had it delivered to my place just today. I thought I’d have to wait a day or so, but no. I barely had time to go back home to clean out the old fridge and make everything ready for the guys delivering the new one. But it all happened, and now I have a new fridge. It’s all white and kickass and stuff.

But it was a stressful day, with me running all over the place, clearing stuff out, which also includes all the stuff in the hallway, so that the delivery guys would have room to move the old fridge out, and then bring in the new one. I’m just glad it’s Winter, so I was able to put things like my milk, frozen goods and sandwich meats outside for a bit. Had it been Summer, a lot of my food, I might have had to chuck out. :/

So they took out the old fridge, and I saw it standing there, alone, by the side of the road. There’s scrap collectors that drive around collecting this stuff, they make good money with it somehow. It didn’t stay long. But just seeing it out there kind of made me sad. Kinda stupid, but that old fridge served me well, and I never thought of that until today. So all the recognition it got from me was being abandoned by the road. :( But I mean, seriously, what am I supposed to do, say goodbye to it? Send it off in the ocean on a burning boat? I felt sad hahaha

I could have probably had a more meaningful answer, (to me) but this is what happened today, and I kinda felt like sharing the story.

So my answer is…TLDR, people who want to help you out kick ass. My friend runs a business so obviously he can’t give out a free fridge, but he knew I needed one and went according to my financial situation. I know that if you want to make money, you don’t always have to be a vulture; even if you make very little profit with a customer, if they’re happy…they’ll come back. (and I dealt with him a lot over the years) But I’ve not always received such treatment from other places.

Also, your refrigerator is your friend. You gotta think about that sometimes.

I’m hoping something good happens today. Yesterday was a slow day, lol.
@Symbeline Loved your story

Just by watching world news everyday gives me this feeling of appreciating ordinary things, like our tap water, central heating, health insurance, good doctors…

When I was pregnant with my oldest child my baby sister was in a car accident that nearly ended her life. She was in a coma for 9 months. She had to relearn how to do EVERYTHING. I learned to never take people for granted. Since that accident (22 years ago now) I make sure that all the people in my life know exactly how I feel about them. I never want to feel like there was something that went unsaid.