In the most trying times, the little details of life become treasures that we once took for granted.

As I write, my husband has just come home from the hospital after suffering a stroke. A few days ago, he began seeing stars, diamonds and other shapes like "floaters" racing across his eyes. His peripheral vision is gone.

Twenty years ago, he fell from a ladder and crushed his ankle. Five years and 25 surgeries later, he developed a serious bone infection and had to have his leg amputated below the knee. He was able to wear a prosthesis and walk normally. Last year he developed another infection that failed to heal due to diabetes, and his leg was amputated above the knee. This time a prosthesis wouldn't work, so he's been limited to a wheelchair.

Now, with the stroke, he can no longer drive. With this, he has lost one more thing that he used to do.

Through these adversities, our world has grown smaller but deeper. Instead of seeking fulfillment in faraway adventures, we spot the rainbow that suddenly appears in the arc of the sprinkler in our own backyard.

Suddenly, the drops of water on the tips of the pine needles and the pearls of dew on the roses in the first morning light become miracles of beauty as grand as the masterpieces of Florence.

Suddenly, the whisper of the leaves in the breeze and the aria of the mockingbird create music as enthralling as the Mozart that riveted us in Salzburg. Suddenly, the "Tahoe moon" that bathes the midnight sky with a white gold draws out from the soul a mystical connection with the beyond as powerful as the cathedrals of the Old World.

Life becomes a journey of traveling deeper inside. It becomes less about worldly "success" and more about internal riches.

Life becomes learning the bittersweet lessons of emotional maturity – that affliction handled with trust does not deprive, but deepens our humanity.

Life is now filled with appreciation for the "small" superhuman acts of self-forgetting in the face of adversity.

Shortly after my husband was diagnosed with a stroke, as the nurse was rushing his gurney to the CT scan room, she clipped another gurney rolling from the right, to which he called over his shoulder, "It's a good thing it's my right leg that's missing."

He pried from a Russian nurse the word for "garbage" in Russian – a sound like "mooshah" – and floated the term every time the hospital food arrived in his room – causing ripples of laughter from the staff.

His initial shock over his diagnosis shifted over the past two days. He told me that he is not going to focus on what he can't do, but on what he can. He is already mapping out the places he can go in our neighborhood in his electric chair – the barbershop; Arby's for a "market fresh" sandwich; the used-book store; the 99 Cent Only Store, where the nurse assured him he can get fresh eggs.

Life is now filled with magnified appreciation for the gifts of each day. My husband will still be able to watch Scruffy, the young black whippersnapper stray that we took in two years ago, roll around on the stool in the bathroom, her head hanging upside down while she stares down McKitty, our grumpy old Maine coon cat, sprawled in a corner of the tub, growling and hissing at her young rival, with Scruffy then strutting off, her tail rising in an especially jaunty curve – victor again.

He will still be able to pet gentle Maggie, another cat we adopted, with pale green iridescent eyes always wide in wonder and hear her tiny "peep-peep" meow, more like a chirping fledgling.

He will still be able to propel his electric chair out the front door, sit on the porch and watch the hummingbirds float in suspended animation over the red blossoms, listen to the soft chorus of finches, eye the squirrels burying peanuts and feel the cool breeze across his face.

He will still be able to grace others facing adversity with his courage, cheer and Irish wit.

We will still stretch out on the bed after I come home from work and he will ask me how my day went, and we will laugh at the foibles and share all the little details of our daily lives.

And we will overlook what has been lost and revel in all that we still have.