PSA: There's more to life than x....

....where x is not equal to family, friends, or health. There's more to life than poker, more to life than money, more to life than most about everything.

I actually do a pretty good job keeping that in mind at this stage of my life...having kids will tend to keep you in line that way, but it never hurts to remind yourself of that. Unfortunately, a lot of the times you are reminded, it's due to a scary or sad event, and that's what happened to me yesterday.

A co-worker's son was born about two weeks ago with neurological complications, no possible treatment. He was put on a respirator, and the doctors said he would not last long off the respirator...days at most. I am not close with the father, have never hung out away from work or anything like that. But a couple people who are good friends of his went to visit them in the hospital, and told me that even on the respirator, the poor baby struggled for each breath.

Yesterday, they took the baby off the respirator and an hour later he died in his mothers' arms.

I don't know anyone in the family besides the father, and him not really well, but something like this happening to anyone you know hits home, at least to me. We've all got tons in our lives to be thankful for, and which we probably take for granted more than we should. The silver lining of a tragedy is that it can lead us to focus on the good people and other aspects of our lives with some extra appreciation and gratitude.