We were sitting in the living room, chatting about the amazing sky outside. She sat in front of me on the floor, her hands folded under her chin, leaning on the ottoman. My fellow sky watcher was telling me about what it would be like to live in the clouds.

 The light was perfect, softly diffused by the clouds and filtered through the marine fog that was rolling in. I grabbed the camera, hoping it could capture her turquoise eyes and her magical expression. Hoping to capture the feeling of the moment. Peaceful. Dreamy. Lovely.

Click.  Click. The picture was perfection. The beauty, the simplicity, the Moment. It captured Her.  

The "bzzzzzz, bzzzzzz, dee, dee, dee, do, do, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP" of her continuous glucose monitor (CGM), startled me out of the Moment. 

I grabbed her testing stuff. She asked me for a cappuccino. I thought she was joking and we laughed together. She poked while I put in the test strip. She wasn't joking, she just wasn't "here".  She was low, and dropping fast.

She mumbled something about cappuccinos again. I opened the skittles and she dutifully starting chomping. I watched the color drain from her face, her lips blanch, her eyes become hollow and distant. There was 4 minutes difference between the first picture and the second. 4 minutes. 

Today is "World Diabetes Day" also known as "every single day, 24/7/365" in the Durham household, and in millions of households around the world.  Diabetes is a Moment stealer.  A silent, insidious, ever present, relentless, giant elephant in the room, burdensome, scary disease. 

Dr Frederick Banting was born Nov. 14th, 1891. He won the Nobel Peace prize for perfecting the discovery of insulin in 1922. Prior to that, diabetes was always fatal. It still is without insulin. With all the technological advances since 1922, nothing has compared to Dr. Banting's discovery. So today, I am grateful to a man that worked in a crude lab, with no money, shunned by many colleagues, forced to kill his best friend canine to prove his discovery. My kids are alive today because of his diligence, his passion, his drive.

Thanks to Dr. Banting and his small team, we get to have Moments. Even the ones diabetes steals.