Its taken a lot of generations of my ancestors to produce me. Last night I was thinking of how much I appreciate all their unspoken-of struggles over the centuries and millennia .
I appreciate how many endured dissections and aneurysms probably just like I did (dissection in our family is genetic - my mom had the same aorta replacement as I), and they adventured on. Since aorta replacement has only been around for the past thirty years of so - many of my ancestors endured and survived without medical repair.
I'm sure many times some of my ancestors wondered what was happening to them, not having community support as we do today. Many got up in the morning, went to work and despite the challenges of a weakened cardiovascular system, did what they could do, despite limited knowledge of their condition and limited medical treatment availability.
The challenges our ancestors faced were enormous. Everyday they had to completely create commerce, food, shelter, protection and family. Many did not have even a small portion of the medical care, shelter, transportation or luxury available to me.
Yet our ancestors all had one thing in common and that was they were "Survivors".
And they adventured on long enough to pass those survivor genes on to us.
Today I am grateful for all their struggles, challenges and perseverance to make sure we too could be survivors.
Today, I am Grateful to them.
