It Doesn’t Have to Be Rare to Be Precious

During the darkest days of my acute recovery in mid-August, while staying at a nearby resort, most of my time was spent lying in bed.

Outside my room was a wide balcony with an open view to the horizon. But day after day, dark clouds covered almost the entire sky.

In those early days, the dizziness and sensitivity to light were so strong that I wore sunglasses almost all the time—even inside the room—for nearly two weeks. Some days, even looking at the view was difficult.

Still, every day, I hoped for sunshine.

Lying on the bed, I would reach my hand toward the horizon and think:

Maybe tomorrow there will be blue sky.

Maybe tomorrow there will be some sunlight for me.

Before all this, a sunny morning was just a sunny morning.

On that bed, a little morning sunlight coming into my room made the whole day feel full of hope.

Being Together, and Experiencing It

These two months have also been one of the longest periods my wife and I have spent almost continuously together, second only to the COVID-19 period.

From hospitalization through recovery, she has been beside me most of the time. During difficult episodes, I would hold her hand while trying to accept what was happening to my body and mind.

At those moments, simply having her beside me felt incredibly precious.

Sometimes she had to leave to buy food or something we needed.

Fifteen minutes. Thirty minutes. Maybe forty-five.

Those minutes could feel strangely long. And when she came back, everything lifted.

I began wondering:

What was I doing with all the time we had before?

We could be sitting together at home while my mind was already inside the next decision or meeting. We could be traveling together while I was more eager to reach the destination than to experience the journey with her.

Her presence didn’t suddenly become precious because I became unwell.

It was already precious from the start.

Abundant, Yet Priceless

Around 2021, I attended a gemology class and learned a principle that stayed with me:

Rarity affects value.

With gems and diamonds, generally, the rarer something becomes, the greater its value can become. It makes sense in gemology. It makes sense in economics.

But I don’t think we should apply it to everything in life.

Some things can seem abundant and still be priceless:

Time. Health. Sunlight. Freedom. The presence of someone we love.

We don’t need to lose our health to know it is precious. We don’t need a week of dark clouds to value sunlight. And someone we love doesn’t have to become absent before their presence becomes valuable.

Time is perhaps the strangest of all.

We may believe we have plenty of it—another afternoon, another Sunday, another breakfast together, another year.

But we are never living the same moment twice.

A diamond can be lost and perhaps found again.

This afternoon cannot.

The Most Precious Gift

When my wife prepares breakfast for me, she isn’t only giving me breakfast.

She is giving me something much more precious: her time.

When someone helps me, whether the matter is small or big, they are giving me a moment of their life that will never come back.

And when someone sits beside me, holds my hand, or gives me a hug, they are sharing something neither of us can ever collect again.

During recovery, I saw this more clearly than before.

I don’t want to need another hospital bed to remember it.

It doesn’t have to be rare to know it is precious.

While these ordinary moments are still abundant, I want to experience them with the gratitude they already deserve.

Shaped from my audio journals with the help of an AI assistant.