“What would the world be like without Captain Hook?”

“What if Clarence never jumped into the river to save George Bailey and Zuzu’s pedals?”

It’s the age-old, “what if I wasn’t here” question that mankind has wondered for years. It crosses my mind every Liver Day.

Liver Day is my liverversary – marking the occasion of Josh giving me 60 percent of his liver to save my life.

If the surgery hadn’t been successful, my smoking hot wife would never get a moment to herself. Male suitors would be after her like bill collectors after college grads! Instead she gets the joy of me going shopping with her and reminding her of my love with pool noodle love taps.

Emma wouldn’t be masterfully wrapping me around her finger and Ethan would not have a short-enough grandpa to headbutt in the groin. Calvin would eat less green muffins and lack his time of asking the Reverend deep, theological questions while negotiating five more minutes on the playground. And Chloe would not be growl-whispering “grumpaaaa” with her mischievous smile. And ice cream establishments might be out of business.

Pompom would be living with some other family and be named something lame like Snowflake or Miss Beardie. She wouldn’t be named for two great surgeons, Jim Pomposelli and Liz Pomfret.

My lawn definitely would not look so good and our $12 each fresh tomatoes grown in my garden would not be a summer treat. (I figure, with the amount of cash and labor I spend on my garden, it comes out to about $12 per tomato.)

There would be no daily Facebook drivel seen by 5% of the people that I have on this 21st century odd phenomenon called a “my friend list.”

And all my friends with cats would not be aware what a terrible pet choice cats are. They would have no one trying to set them free from feline mind control.

It’s Liver Day. It was 7 years ago today. Today I will eat a couple fried eggs, over easy, 3 strips of rubbery turkey bacon and some peppers and onions. I’ll drink 2 cups of froo-froo coffee, volunteer with my first-grade reading pals, go to my Rotary Club meeting and then spend my afternoon assembling a 5th annual report for the church that God plopped me into. Then, I’ll spend my evening pretending to help Nana babysit our four rugrats while their moms and dads have their LifeGroup.

It will be a great day. Pretty much all my days are great in one way or another. Even sick days, grumpy days, conflict days and hard days are great days when I consider that I nearly didn’t get the chance to have any more days.

Every day is a bonus day. It really is true. “Hey, I’m glad to be alive to have this crappy day,” is what I try to remember when crappy days come around. But, thankfully, most of my days are awesome and I try not to take any of them for granted.

Have a fantastic Tuesday. Write to your Congressman and try to get May 7 to be made a national holiday. Then, we could all get another day off and spend it enjoying each other. I’d like that a lot.

#everydayisabonusday