Nothing For Granted

The other day my Uncle pulled me aside.
"I have something important to tell you. And you have probably heard it before," he said.
"Okay..."
"Don't take one day for granted. Understand?" He smiled.
At the time I nodded my head and hugged him good-bye and we drove four hours back home.
But that kind of quote and the question that followed it is a lot more complicated then I think even I was prepared to acknowledge.
He didn't say live every day, he didn't say do something worth living for every day-- no, he said don't take one day for granted.

How do you not take something for granted?
I don't think I am alone when I say that as a young adult I am bound to take every day until I am fifty for granted. Because, whether I would like to admit it or not, I don't think I am going to die any time soon.
And that kind of outlook changes dramatically what you do and don't take for granted.

But then I went to thinking more.

What if you took the day for granted, but then one thing happened that you knew you would remember forever, until the day you died. And you didn't take that moment for granted... would you then not be taking that day for granted... because you were able to appreciate a moment of it?

When I sit down on my computer to write another page of another story I am weaving, I never take a moment of that for granted. I am soooo thankful that I can just sit there in my room and do what I want to do without anything to hold me back.
See, you can only go as far as you can dream. You don't have to always see the entire road that will take you there, or the detours that will slow you down.