Almost everyone has experienced at least one harrowing event in which they felt they might have died. An automobile accident or near accident, a fall, an illness. A car speeding past them careening off
road while they were walking along. A kitchen towel you were holding just started to catch fire, and you noticed it immediately. You began to lose your balance while climbing on a ladder. A driver lost control of his vehicle and ran onto sidewalk right near you. You might think back to one of more frightening times that you remember from past. If it was very dangerous, mere memory of event right now might send a chill down your spine, and shivers over your body.
Recall how you felt after initial shock passed, your heart rate had returned to normal, and your breathing had slowed down and trembling in your body had ceased. The scenario reverberated in your head. You would relive experience, near miss, a number of times as you sat there, calming down.
You might very well view in your mind what might have happened if only one small factor had been different. If other car had been only a few inches closer, you would have been pushed into median. If you had been more distracted few burning fibers of towel in your hand might have spread to other flammable items near by. If branch of tree near ladder hadn't stopped slippage of ladder, you would have fallen twenty feet onto concrete. The gruesome scenes were vivid in your mind's eye.
If any of these types of events happened when you were a child, these scenes probably affected your parents more than they affected you. They were ones most terrified, and they experienced shock, numbness, and panicky feelings. They were ones who would grasp and then hold you tightly, and cry. It might only be later that you would have a small glimpse of close brush with death that had occurred.
As an adult, as we begin to recognize fragility of life, fine line of a few inches, a few seconds, a few pounds of force that keeps us from hereafter, we can realize that there may not be any more time to do those things we would like to do.
There may not be another chance to tell our spouse that we are sorry that we lost our temper and yelled at them last night. We might not be able to tell our kid that even though he failed last test, we still loved him anyway. Despite harsh lecture and month's restriction we gave him, we really thought he was a neat kid.
Following an incident which puts us in touch with fact that once we have ended our short span of time as physical presence on this planet, we are often filled with a heightened awareness of physical world, presence of simple actions that we perform, and sensitivity to people around us, particularly those we hold dear. Colors seem more intense, sounds more acute, tastes more pungent, and emotions more intense. It’s like being a young child again, and experiencing world as a new, exciting and enticing place. We want to savor each experience and moment. This renewed love affair with life may last for a very short time, a day or two. Often we get caught up again in day-to-day duties and tasks that life brings with it. We get complacent about vibrant joys that each day can reveal to us, and we may drift back again into a mundane existence. One mundane day after another ends up becoming a boring week. Several joyless weeks turn into lackluster months, and eventually years. Now, many of us don’t go for months without some joyful occasions. There are holidays, birthdays, and celebrations. Wouldn't it be nice if each day were a celebration?
