I laid in bed moping about how crummy business has been in April. Then I saw my beautiful wife of almost 54 years snoring slightly next to me and thought, “You fool. You are incredibly blessed. Start thinking about all of your gifts.” And so I did, and I had my topic for the day.

I was born in America at the end of World War II. My dad operated a machine shop with rows of Davenports and Acme machines. He was not marching in Europe or slogging through the Philippines. If my grandparents and great-grandparents had not taken steerage to Ellis Island, my parents might have been gassed in a concentration camp or starved in Russia.

I grew up in the Golden Age of American Jews, which hopefully is not coming to an end on college campuses today, with confused students and weak administrators.

I had another War to deal with, Vietnam, but instead of dying in the jungle like 60,000 of my peers, I went to Fort Jackson, South Carolina. I did basic training and then went back to Chicago to deal with riots that never occurred after Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were murdered in1968.

I lived in prosperous times, married the woman I doubted I ever would meet, and had three bright and loving children who choose to stay close to us as we age.

I had the opportunity to work with my father and brother. I found the business challenging and managed to get along with them most of the time. I was healthy until 2003. Then I lost vision in my right eye with a series of retina tears and scarring.

In 2008, I had a severe heart attack that should have killed me. I had a completely blocked LAD artery that kills 99% of the people who have it, but 20 years of running gave me enough peripheral circulation that I survived long enough to have a stent installed. Three days later I was strong enough to survive quadruple bypass surgery and mitral valve repair. I walked out of the hospital after 13 days, 12 of them on a respirator.

And here I am, still buying and selling machine tools and businesses. I’m in the 24th year of writing a column for the magazine I always dreamed of owning, working with my son, Noah, and married to the woman I met when she was a 17-year-old freshman at the University of Michigan.

In 2016, my beloved Chicago Cubs won the World Series in seven games, and I still watch them whenever I have a spare moment. I have five grandchildren who actually seem to like me and a family that loves getting together for at least two vacations a year.

Business stinks in April of 2024, but somehow I’m alive. I live in a country I love, and I have the ability to work with words to write a blog that at least a few people continue to read.

I am truly grateful.

The post Grateful Every Day first appeared on Today’s Machining World.