Granted I love something about every season, and even though summer with its humidity and heat is my least favorite, I can still find something to enjoy. When else can I lay by the pool, watch my kids splash around, and enjoy time with them without a PSP, TV or iPod? That’s about all I love about summer, but with spring there is so much more to love and enjoy. I walk around our campus and appreciate the beauty of the carefully planted and cared for flowers. The weeds are pulled, the grass is mowed and edged, the sidewalks are cleared of debris, and the trees are preserved for our shade and enjoyment. This semester has caused me to realize that I take a lot of things and a lot of people for granted. I know I am not the only one who appreciates our beautiful campus, but I sometimes forget about the men and women that spend hours working to make sure we have a campus to enjoy in all seasons. I just take it for granted that they will keep things looking great. So to our groundskeepers — I say thanks to you all.

I have found that I also take good friends for granted and expect that we’ll just always be together. When I have a friend waiting for a kidney transplant and only two weeks ago find out that another has leukemia, it makes me realize that I can’t continue taking for granted the people in my life.

I also took for granted that each Tuesday and Friday when I walked into my Intro to Lit class, I would find Jeff Jeske there, ready to offer our class more of his wisdom, understanding and insight. I took for granted that I would be able to send him an e-mail and get a response back, like always, within a few minutes or no more than a few hours, whatever the day of the week. I took for granted that when I received input on my work and ideas, there would always be encouragement enveloping any corrections or criticisms. The encouragement always made me believe I could do it and even when the correction stung a little, his encouragement spurred me on to do even better.

When Jeske’s “perfect storm” (as Jeske quoted his doctor) nearly took his life, and when the life-threatening illnesses of two of my friends became known, I had to take an inventory of my own life — what am I just expecting to always “be” and what am I calling important that might not be so important. Besides the inventory, I realize that my expectations of what will always be cause me to take for granted individual acts of kindness, whether it’s the encouragement mixed with constructive criticism from Jeske; flowers hand delivered to me by my friend with leukemia; or an invitation to eat dinner from my friend who waits for a new kidney.

Though they seem like simple things, how many of them do we experience everyday without fully appreciating until they are gone? Or something happens and we realize the possibility that they might not always be there. So whether it’s the groundskeepers, my friends, my professors or my family, I want to offer my thanks and appreciation to them no matter how simple or small the act of kindness or service may be. I want them to know how important they are to me, because they make my life better just because they are in it. So, this summer when I’m enjoying the pool with my kids without PSPs, iPods or TVs, I’ll appreciate it even more. Instead of watching them splash around, I’ll take a deep breath and dive in to that freezing cold water, realizing that these times are precious and I can’t take them for granted either.