I had one early on when I was a kid, my mother had complications at birth with my brother Rick, and Rick was born 3 months premature and had massive heart surgery, collapsed lungs the whole shebang, and my mother almost died like 5 times during the surgeries. I spent a lot of this time with my father or with various relatives when my father was gone, he wasn't exactly in the picture so much right then. I spent weeks crying in the hospital chapel thinking my mother and brother were dead or dying, didnt have anyone to really explain it to me.
That kind of always tampered the way I saw things I think, like death doesnt bother me anymore, hasnt since around then. And with that its like a freeing thing, to be able to appreciate the beauty of existence and how lucky and how one in a zillion it is just to exist at all, it makes life taste like chocolate, all bittersweet but very satisfying. That whole discussion about beauty at the end of American beauty makes me tear up every single time. Ive always felt that way.
