Over the last few months, I have been pre-occupied with the sickness and eventual death of my mom.  I have been through a gauntlet of emotions ranging from sadness, disbelief, and perhaps even anger to name a few.  My mom has been gone for just a month now, and time continues to move forward without compromise and feeling.

I prayed for a miraculous cure, and dreamed that she would be part of my life for many years to come.  I asked for God to save my mom from a terminal disease, but she passed away regardless.  Did I receive a miracle?  After some deep thinking about the events that transpired, maybe I did have one all along.

Life itself is a miracle.  The simple fact that we are all here today is a testament of that.  I can hear the questions now.  How is that exactly?  This, like many other things, can be viewed differently through different mindsets.  At one instance, we are here, and there is nothing to really think about.  My mom and dad met, things went down that I prefer to not think too much about, and suddenly I was a child and my life was started.

Astronomers are constantly trying to answer the question of how things started, pushing back in time billions of years through examining of the cosmos.  On a pure scientific level, we are here as a result of countless death and rebirth of stars and galaxies.  Our planet formed in a Goldilocks zone in the solar system.  Not too far from the sun, and not too close.  Perfect!  Jupiter did not form too close to prevent the formation of the earth.  The sun is not too violent and is a prime source for life.  So in pure astronomical terms, what are the odds that the earth was able to form and be a sustainer of life at all?  Pick a star at random and the odds of it being suitable for a planet sustaining life are very slim.

What about the store of life on earth.  How many generations can be counted back from the present?  Modern medical practices only entered into society within the last hundred years.  Going back further, it was based on non-scientific techniques, and going back even as recent as a thousand years, was pretty much non-existent at all.  Think about the genealogy of any given family, given the lack of medical practices, constant state of wars, and simply surviving into adulthood, how fascinating is it to think about one link in the chain that could have easily changed, thus causing you as the individual you are to not be here today.  Maybe a great-great-great-great-great grandparent was very sick, but experienced a surprising recovery.  Perhaps this individual was spared a tragedy by being late by just a few minutes.  Each of us is connected by this link of life, to which each link was fragile and easily broken.  Maybe two ancestors did not have that change meeting which resulted in a family bond.  In my family history, if one of these links were broken, I am not here today.

Just on the news this morning, I saw a report of a toddler being killed by zoo animals.  Turn on the news and see a constant stream of soldiers killed in Afghanistan or Iraq.  Read a book about World War II, or any war in general, and each reader will hear stories of loss and death.  The tragedy is not simply that someone died, but also the ramifications of a lost lineage.  For anyone who has died before their time, especially if they have not yet had the opportunity to begin a family, the loss for this individual and their future line of family is complete.  Think about the soldiers storming Omaha Beach on D-Day during World War II, the deaths of these soldiers prevents a family reunion from taking place.  These individuals never had the chance, and as a consequence of pride and lust of power by those leading these countries, a family reunion should have taken place, but the death of the family line is complete and eternal.

So for today, instead of praying for a new miracle, it may be best to reflect and contemplate the miracle we have already received.  Instead of getting upset over trivial matters, think about the overall miracle of life in a big-picture concept.  My mom was a great mother and I could not have asked for anything more.  She lived a good life, impacted many people, and truly left the world a better place.  That is a miracle.  The fact that I am here and she was my mom is a miracle.  I asked God for a miracle, but did not realize I had already received it.