Almost Living

Since I was a young  boy, I have had several close scrapes with death.  But it always feels like I'm overstating my case to say, "I almost died."  Because in each event my body was not in the throes of death. I was physically fine through each ordeal.  On the other hand, each of them was a very close call.

Four years ago I was involved in a high speed automobile accident on an interstate  near here.  I was driving 70 miles per hour in the right lane when a car hit me hard enough from behind to total my car. So how did I almost die? The car hit my car square on the bumper. If it had clipped my bumper six inches either direction, I probably would not have survived the accident. So did I "almost die?" Paramedics didn't have to revive me. I was not in ICU on life support. So no, it was a close call, but I didn't almost die.

In October of 1991, I was walking across a parking lot when I was struck by a car. After landing on the trunk and rolling to the asphalt, the car's tire stopped about six inches from my head. I got up, brushed myself off and walked away.  So did I nearly die?  It was traumatic, but I was nowhere close to death.

As an adolescent, I spent three years in Troop 99  of the Boy Scouts of America. I enjoyed our weekly meetings in the fellowship hall of the First United Methodist Church, but I especially enjoyed our camping trips.  Besides numerous weekend trips, the event I enjoyed the most was our summer camp at Camp AlaFlo just outside of Enterprise. By the third summer I had earned enough merit badges to have achieved the level of Life Scout and I was turning the corner toward Eagle.. One of the merit badges I earned that summer was the Lifesaving Merit Badge.  It was challenging and I nearly met my Waterloo.

I'm very careful criticizing my mother.  My mother loved me fiercely.  She nurtured me and took care of me in every way possible.  And when I tell you this, you're going to say, "You were plenty old enough to pack your own backpack."  I'll say in advance of your comment that you are exactly right. But you have to understand that my mother took care of me to a fault. She did things for me that she should have taught me to do for myself. I'm quite certain though that for her it was much easier to do these things than to wait for me to figure it out. With that said, she's the one who packed my backpack for this summer camp. We both knew in advance that I would need a long-sleeved shirt as part of the requirement for the Lifesaving Merit Badge. And she did exactly that. She packed a long-sleeved shirt.

This part of the challenge was to jump in the water fully clothed and swim back about fifteen feet to the ladder. Obviously, the idea was to be prepared to act in a desperate situation of life and death. Thankfully, the lake at this place was only about six feet deep. You ask, "What difference does the depth make when you're swimming?" The reason the depth was significant is that the shirt my mother had packed for me was a long-sleeved sweat shirt. I was wearing blue jeans, socks,  my athletic shoes, an undershirt and this very thick sweat shirt. I jumped in the water and sank like an anchor. You may not believe that I remember my thought processes, but I do. Standing on the bottom I thought, "David, if you don't do something quickly, you are going to die."  I considered pulling the sweatshirt over my head, but was afraid I'd get tangled in it and drown. So my next thought was, "JUMP!"  When I sprang from my toes  with all my might, I barely cleared the surface with my mouth and nose. I gulped some air and did it again. You're thinking, "Why didn't somebody jump in and help you?" Keep in mind this was a lake, not a pool.  Somebody would have had to notice a nose bobbing out of dark water. So nobody jumped in to help me. I was on my own. I knew the direction of the ladder and I jumped and breathed my way to it. At the ladder I climbed back into the light of day.

So did I nearly drown?  No, I don't think so. Nobody did CPR; there was no drama. Nobody even knew what happened but me. Which brings up your last question, "Why didn't your scout master stop you from jumping in?"  Yeah, and I could ask 'Why didn't my scout master encourage me not to quit scouts when I was so close to Eagle?" You know, I was one of sixty kids under his watch, he had no idea what I was going through. He was doing the best he could do. I was one of three kids under my mother's watch and she was doing the best she could do, too.

I drive that interstate quite often. I walked across that parking lot just the other day. Two years ago when I was home, a scout master took me on a tour of Camp AlaFlo and I saw that lake and that ladder. No, I didn't almost die. But every day of my life, I try to do so much more than almost live. Because the next time I might not be so lucky.