Last Night at Dinner, I Was Asked: What Matters More — Health or Happiness?

Last Night at Dinner, I Was Asked: What Matters More — Health or Happiness?

Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

A moment in an oncology unit reminded me how quickly everything can change — and what truly matters when it does.

Last night at dinner, I was asked a question that stayed with me long after the conversation ended:

What is more important — health or happiness?

Someone at the table answered quickly.

“Happiness.”

I didn’t argue.

I just paused.

Because in an instant, I wasn’t at that table anymore.

I was somewhere else entirely.

Years ago, when I was working in a Hematology and Oncology Clinical Research Unit at a large cancer institution, a family rushed in with their daughter.

They had just dropped her off at a middle school dance.

She was dancing. Laughing. Living a normal, beautiful moment.

And then — she collapsed.

When they picked her up, instead of going home, they brought her to the hospital.

Within hours, everything changed.

Glioblastoma.

I remember walking into the room.

It was quiet in a way that didn’t feel normal.

The kind of silence that holds fear.

She was still wearing her dress from the dance.

A young girl — full of life — is now completely still.

The contrast was unbearable.

The room was small. The doctor, a nurse, her parents… and me.

I wasn’t a mother yet.

But even then, I felt it.

The shock.

The fear.

The instant collapse of everything they thought their life would be.

They had dropped off a healthy child…

And within hours, their world had shattered.

I remember the way they looked at her.

Not speaking.

Just looking.

And somehow, everything was in that silence.

And then something happened I will never forget.

The parents slowly took off the amulets they were wearing — small, worn, deeply personal.

Something they had carried for years.

Something meant to protect.

Their hands trembled as they placed them into the doctor’s hands.

Not as a gesture.

As a plea.

They looked at him as if he were the only one who could save her.

They didn’t say the words.

They didn’t have to.

Please… save her.

The doctor — one of the most experienced oncologists in the hospital — had tears in his eyes.

And in that moment, the room felt impossibly small.

As if the entire world had narrowed to that single exchange.

Faith.

Love.

Hope.

Desperation.

And the unbearable weight of the unknown.

And I understood that instinct.

I carry something small myself — a quiet symbol of protection.

Once, I gave it to a colleague before an important moment, just for luck.

Because when something matters, we all reach for something to hold onto.

But in that room, it was different.

They weren’t giving luck.

They were giving hope.

Today, as a mother, I feel it even more deeply.

Because now I understand what it means to look at your child and see your entire world.

To imagine their future.

To believe in all the years ahead.

And I still think about that girl.

What her life could have been.

What it might have looked like years later.

That was the moment that came back to me at the dinner table.

And when I finally spoke, I didn’t argue.

I simply shared this story.

Because moments like that change the way you see everything.

So what matters more — health or happiness?

I don’t believe we can separate them.

But I do know this:

When health is taken away, happiness becomes something very different.

Smaller.

Quieter.

More fragile.

Health is the foundation that allows us to live.

Happiness is what gives that life meaning.

And if this experience taught me anything, it’s this:

Every moment we have — with our children, with our families, with the people we love — is a gift.

Something we should never take for granted.

My father always says:

“Everything is fine. Everything will be okay.”

And maybe that’s what we hold onto.

Gratitude for the health we have.

Gratitude for the happiness we feel.

Because in the end…

One cannot truly exist without the other.