Tomorrow. I don’t think many teens have a good handle on what this means. Today is my first day of summer. I love summers, don’t misunderstand that, but it seems like people place their whole importance on summer. They wait all year for it. Every other season people just pass on through, waiting and waiting for their freedom. But we’re free every day. Summer is kind of like people’s idea of “perfection.” We go through life with this idea that there’s some great mecca, some un-foretold point in our life when things really will get easier, happiness will be a consistency, and our life’s purpose will make sense. We patiently wait for this time, just as we plaster our cubicle walls with beach scenes and our minds with visions of the coming warmth, and ignore the other 9 months of the year. But what about those months?

What about all those moments in life we spend waiting for the next? The few minutes we spend in stop-and-go traffic in the mornings. The minutes we spend staring intently at the clock to tick the end of the work or school day. The time we spend anxiously waiting to leave. The time we spend thinking of tomorrow, or next week, all the minutes, hours, and days we spend planning the future. They’re just like those 9 months.

By spending one minute wanting the next, we’ve lost a minute of our life to the next. Eventually, we’ve lost a lot of minutes and moments to tomorrow. Sometimes though, tomorrow never comes. In this minute many things are happening. Someone just took their last breath. Someone just took their first one. The sun is setting, and it’s rising. Someone’s waking up; someone’s laying their head down to sleep. So much is happening in this minute and for all those things happening, tomorrow isn’t going to come for someone.

Tomorrow is a crazy thing to think of. We all like to put things on tomorrow, to push them off to the next day. The next day isn’t a guarantee. It’s easy to forget this. For some—the terminally ill, the elderly, and those in hospice currently—they understand. The most beautiful people you’ll ever meet are those who know they can die at any time. Not the kids with the YOLO shirts, or the thrill-seekers, or the apocalypse theorists, but the people who have sense enough to make the most of their time.

I knew a man like this. Diagnosed with a cancer, given the expiration date, and faced with reality this man made a choice. He got up most mornings with a smile on his face, even when it was forced. Even when that smile was shadowed by a half mustache from the chemo and a tumor out of his cheek. A man, who as he’d been whittled down to skin stretched over bones barely able to walk, still managed to golf with his best friend. A man, who still fought with his kids for the sake of preserving normalcy, still drove them through the drive-through to pick up treats, who still promised them all the indulgences of a future he’d never get to see. A man who wore a hospital mask on an airplane—even when he was embarrassed—so he could fly and have a last family trip. A man who still held onto a feather his baby girl gave him when she was a toddler till the day he died because she promised as long as he had it, he’d always be safe.

This man was my father. He was the most beautiful soul I ever met. He didn’t wait for summer, or for tomorrow, or spend his minutes looking at the clock. He pushed himself to make the most out of the short allotment he’d been given. I’m looking forward to this summer—it’s my 80 days of freedom—but it’s less than a quarter of the year. And a small piece of my life in whole. It’ll be gone before I know it. I’m happy to have it though. Right now. Not tomorrow, five minutes from now, or the next thing I’ve got to look forward to, now. This moment.

I’m going to close my eyes, breath in the warm air, and think of my Daddy up in heaven. Of the man who can’t see today, because he didn’t get his tomorrow. I might not either. I smile as I realize this moment is a gracious gift that could disappear as quickly as it came. So enjoy your summer. But every now and then—in the midst of one of those moments where you are patiently waiting for your tomorrow—close your eyes, smile (even if you have to force it), and be gracious for now. You’re alive, what more of a reason do you need to be grateful?