Personal brushes with death

Please believe that I was supposed to be having my date with Destiny and meet a tragic fate many times over. These are just the times that I can recollect and/or was more or less informed of by others with first hand knowledge of the situations.

Just as an aside, these accounts likely won't be in chronological order or have very many informative details I imagine. However, they may help someone else from almost falling prey to the scythe in a similar fashion.

Without further ado:

The most recent situation that I remember was just mere weeks ago actually. My youngest daughter was foolishly jumping on her mom's bed, emboldened by a lack of strict punishment enacted on her and her older sister. When I tell you that I saw my life flash before my eyes as she tumbled between two of the three beds in their room...

I knew without a doubt that she was going to land wrong and that I was going to be unable to live with the shame and grief. Thankfully, I was completely mistaken and she more or less learned a lesson about being a rebel without a cause.

The earliest situation that I'm aware of was relayed to me by my old man. Apparently, I couldn't get close enough to the furnace, in an apartment that my folks had early in their marriage; and I often managed to wedge myself in between it and the bed at night, regardless of the obstacles and such.

Another recent and more debatable situation I reckon—I was standing in a local Starbucks while rapping on the phone and was almost certain that I felt my life force slipping from me steadily. I believe that the only reason that I made out of there alive was that I decided to believe in something bigger than me and called out in my heart of hearts.

I almost drowned several times; once before I even escaped elementary school. Somehow, a buddy and my self call ourselves getting closer to the fine honeys by making our way into the deeper waters knowing that we couldn't swim.

I don't know where our supervision was or how it made sense to us to jump in the water that we couldn't wade into. Thankfully, he waited to see if I would be okay and I pulled on his swimming trunks until I was safely out of the deeps (after quickly learning how to hold my breath).

In all fairness, a lifeguard walked by just mere moments later as I was catching my breath. Also, I'm pretty sure that I had a severe TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) right beforehand (which ruined my chances of being a child star; along with a few family photos) that I'm confident lowered my cognitive abilities.

Another one related to my daughters—while my youngest was still in the womb, her older sister also fell off the bed due to miscommunication and such. She was dazed and confused, so their mother asked me for a ride to the ER (emergency room).

On my way to their living situation at the time, I got flagged and neglected to pull over. Upon me noticing the officer preparing to pull a PIT (Precision Immobilization Technique) maneuver, I finally decided to hit the shoulder and offer him my explanation for speeding and whatnot.

Of course he approached my car with his weapon drawn as I fumbled around for my documents (license, registration, and proof of insurance). I'm convinced that the main reasons for him deciding not to open fire on my ugly self right then and there were my military stickers and some prayers from the times when I had a couple of living grandmas and at least two living great grandmothers.

Last tho certainly not least, the very reason that I started celebrating an "Alive Day" (albeit improperly considering I never saw combat per se). In the middle of the night, right after we finished celebrating NYE (New Year's Eve), as the calendar switched to 01JAN2010, we ended up stuck on a bridge that had previously been blown up by American bombs (to the best of my understanding).

I still don't know how or why, but our "bird cage" armor (meant to prevent RPGs [rocket propelled grenades] from exploding against the hulls of our trucks) ended up getting tangled up on the new bridge. Naturally, I blame the LT (lieutenant) who was riding in our Stryker (APC [armored personnel carrier]) at the time.

We had lost a couple of damn fine soldiers, and better men that I could ever hope to be, on that bridge not more than a few months prior (Rest In Power, Selge and Shay). There were at least a few other incidents involving guns and another couple nearly fatal accidents; tho, I'll save that for part two.