8 years ago my mother was taken to the emergency room. She could barely breathe. Her lungs were failing. The next day my father called me and said through tears, that I should come up and be prepared to say goodbye to her. I got the next plane out. 
When I walked in to her room, she saw me and said through heavy sedation "What are you doing here?" I couldn't tell if she was trying to be funny or if she realized me being there meant her condition was serious.
Over the next two days she made a startling recovery, quit smoking then and there for good, and began going to the gym. She'd suffered severe COPD for years but never told anyone about her pain until it was nearly too late.
The doctor later said, "If she had waited until morning to got to the ER, she probably wouldn't have made it. Months later, she and my father went on a cruise to celebrate his 70th birthday and her miraculous recovery. He died suddenly in his sleep on the first night.
My mother has shown such incredible strength and perseverance in the years since his passing: facing the selling a business and a house, and learning to find a new way of living on her own without her forever partner.
When I think about how close I came to losing both parents in the span of a few months, I'm filled with gratitude that she didn't wait until morning to go to the hospital. After 14 months, I finally get to see her in 10 days. It's going to be a wonderful belated Mother's Day.
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