Moments of Clarity

There have been moments in my life when problems, fears and worries were swept away and the priority of things I believed to be important suddenly changed. These were my "moments of clarity." They occurred at times like the birth of my children, the death of my parents, the exchange of marriage vows. The most intense moments immediately followed near-death experiences. My first thoughts then were "I’m lucky to be alive!" Here are some examples.

Fall From Dam - When I was twelve I had been using crutches for two years because of a bone disease that left my right leg unable to bear weight. My neighborhood friends were Boy Scouts and I wanted to join their troop. Perhaps in an effort to dissuade me, several boys proposed that I pass an "audition" by keeping up with them as we hiked a progressively more difficult course they had mapped out in the nearby woods. I performed well until we attempted to cross the top of a dam. The dam was partially collapsed and once formed a lake where it had blocked a small stream. I made it to the center by squeezing carefully between my crutches, which were positioned at the very edges of the narrow top. At the center of the dam was a two-foot wide section that had crumbled away. As I attempted to step across, one crutch slipped and I fell eight feet to the ground below. I remember crying out as I fell and then waking up sometime later on my back. I was lying in a shallow pond with water up around my face, nearly covering my nose and mouth. I sat up slowly and looked for the others. They were gone. Later I learned that they believed I was dead and had sworn a pact of silence before returning to their homes. The pond around me was bright red. Then I noticed the blood arcing across the water from the deep cut in the top of my head, spurting in rhythm with my pulse. I had landed headfirst onto a large block of concrete broken from the dam. Beside me were my crutches, one snapped in half. At first I did not know where I was or how I had gotten there. Eventually I got to my feet, pressed my hand against the wound to slow the bleeding and began hobbling out of the woods on the single unbroken crutch. I made it home after half an hour, frightening my mother so badly that she fainted to the kitchen floor. A neighbor took us both to the hospital where I received stitches and was treated for a concussion. This was my first brush with death. As I rode to the hospital I experienced my moment of clarity. I knew I had cheated death and that the dawning of each new day for the remainder of my life was a gift.

Drawbridge Opening - My wife and I were driving in the country on a Sunday afternoon when we came to a drawbridge that was just about to open for an approaching ship. It was a very old bridge design in which the entire center span was raised by cables and pulleys installed in two towers constructed on the opposite shores of the canal. As the roadway rose into the air an iron fence emerged from the end of the pavement to prevent cars from plunging into the water. We walked up to the fence to better view the ship about to pass. I could faintly hear someone shouting behind me. Turning, I noticed a man waving his arms from the window of a building several hundred feet away. It was the bridge tender calling from the control house. He was shouting "Move away!" "But we just want to see the ship"; I called back. "Move now!" he yelled even louder, now waving his arms frantically. I took my wife’s hand and moved from the fence back toward our car, mumbling "What an ass." Just then we heard a loud Thump behind us as the pavement trembled beneath our feet. We turned to see a giant wall of concrete where the fence and open water had been just a second before. The bridge tender had been warning us away from the section of pavement that was about to be occupied by the descending massive iron and concrete counterweight. We had nearly been smashed as flat as caterpillars under a boot. Neither of us had realized the significance of the yellow caution lines painted on the roadway beneath us. With expressions of shock we looked at each other then turned back toward the control building. The bridge tender shouted one last comment, "Stupid bastards!" We rode home in silence, each lost in our own moment of clarity.

Lucky Hesitation - Returning home one everning, my wife and I stopped for a red light at a busy intersection. We turned toward each other and continued our conversation as we waited for the light to change. After a minute the driver behind began honking his horn. I glanced in the mirror, then at the signal and saw that it had changed to green while we talked. The driver honked again and I was just about to instinctively proceed forward, but thankfully I first glanced to my left. A gasoline tanker tractor-trailer that had ignored the red light suddenly blew past us and through the intersection at fifty-five miles an hour. A second's hesitation had prevent us from being crushed and burned in a fiery collision. I kept my foot on the brake and waved the impatient driver around us. We sat silently through the next cycle of the traffic light and remained silent during the ride home. Again, problems and worries disappeared, priorities changed. It was the first day of the rest of our lives.

Have you ever said to yourself, "If I could have a second chanced to live my life, I would do things differently?" In my moments of clarity I realize that every day is the second chance I might wish for. Every day is an opportunity to apply the lessons learned from the past and to live life as if this day might be my last.

The truth is, it just might be.