"We Paved Paradise..."

"Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got till it’s gone, we paved paradise to put up a parking lot"-Counting Crows

I found out recently that my best friend’s mother is going to lose her ongoing fight with breast cancer. This not only shocked me, but I was utterly appalled that woman so generous and kind should suffer this horrific fate. I was never told the extent to which the cancer had spread or had gotten worse, and for that reason I had remained optimistic up until receiving this news.

Up until this point I hadn't experienced a death or rather will experience a death of this magnitude. Sure, great aunts and uncles have passed, even my own grandpa passed away, but for some reason it didn't hit me as hard as finding out Mrs. Kelly had a few weeks to live. Was this because I was closer to Mrs. Kelly than I had been with my own relatives? Or was there some underlying reason that this pain was greater than others?

This question stuck with me for awhile until I realized what the answer was. I felt so much pain for Emily, a young girl of 16, who would have to go on through her teenage years without a mother. Through the pain I felt for Emily, I realized that I had been taking my parents for granted. It disgusts me as I look back now that I've regarded my parents as nuisances, instead of the loving people they are. My whole perspective on life changed, the moment I knew Mrs. Kelly was going to die.

I wasn't the only one who came to this conclusion. As my friends and I were talking and crying in the locker room about Mrs. Kelly one day after practice, we agreed that through her death we would appreciate our parents more. It's a shame that the death of such a lovely woman was what it took to make us come to this conclusion. Which reminds me of the lyrics to a counting crow song..."Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got till it’s gone, we paved paradise to put up a parking lot."