The gift of 16,300,000 minutes

31 years.

31 perfect years.

31 years of waking up each day knowing my body has been up for the challenge. Thanks to a functioning kidney, fist-sized and feisty as hell, sitting in my lower left abdomen.

The fist-sized vacancy in my brother Bill’s upper abdomen, an undersized reminder of a gift I can never repay.

I am so grateful for every minute of these 31 years.

For the one where I met Erica and immediately knew life would never be the same.

For the ones we’ve spent since, building a life that means everything.

For ones spent with friends, cracking up at the dumbest shit imaginable.

For the ones spent with family, feeling the full weight of their support in a glance or a light squeeze of the shoulder.

For the ones spent with our cats. A love I never knew existed until Erica introduced me to Sophie. Nine pounds of floof that stole my heart.

For the ones doing work that I’ve loved, and sometimes hated.

For the easy ones.

And the ones that nearly crushed me.

I would not trade a single one of the 16,300,000 minutes I’ve been blessed with since March 16, 1994.

Even the one where I may or may not have fallen on my butt right in front of our CEO at an ad agency holiday party after a few too many too-full glasses of mediocre red wine.

Thank you, Bill, for all of them.