Don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you’ve got Till it’s goneSo goes a signature line from singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi.”
Sometimes we become so accustomed to someone or something—a spouse, a child, good health—that only their absence opens our eyes and our hearts. Catastrophe strikes—a death, a dire illness, a bankruptcy—and only then does the familiar become wonderfully and fearfully precious.