Do you ever wake up and say to yourself: "Thank God I'm alive?"?

Question

Not so much a celebration of life, but an amazed backwards view of all that should have killed me. Vietnam was one, but there have been others. My kids would not have been born. Do you look back in amazement at all that you have been through, realizing that you are still here?

Answer 1

Nope, I can sometimes think of some "narrow squeaks" I've had over the years and think "whew, that was a close one". But - if you know the expression - a miss is as good as a mile. I dodged the bullet, and the result was the same whether it had missed me by a mile, or just wizzed an inch past my head. So, I got lucky, and I went on truckin'

if a person s tarts getting all caught up in the "what-if" game, he can drive himself nuts. I am laughing to myself as it just came back into my mind a conversation I'd had with an old Marine I knew some years back. Jack was quite a character, walked with a limp from a battle wound, and -speaking of bullets - showed me a few bullet holes he'd sustained, and amazingly survived. But the story that sticks in my mind is the one that had me just rolling about laughing. There had been a pretty hot moment in a battle, during which he was trying to stabilize himself atop a rock, so he could better see his guys, and yell some instructions to them. He was having difficulty getting proper purchase with his feet on the smooth rock, and at one point both his feet slipped sideways, making his legs stretch widely. At precisely the moment this happened, some kind of shell fired in his direction actually zoomed between his spraddled legs, catching his scrotum enough to cause a significant gush of blood. The end result was that he lost one testicle, but escaped death by thiiiiiiiiiiis much, as he said, grinning.

It's the way he told the story that made it impossible not to laugh, and Jack really was the most mentally sound, philosophical, matter-of-fact guy I ever met..

NO, it is not true that there are no atheists in foxholes. Jack wasn't a "believer" in any mysterious invisible superbeing, and he never tried to put his moment of luck down to any "divine intervention". It was, no more, no less, than a fortuitous co-incidence of two things at the same moment... his feet slipping on that rock, and the missile zooming between his legs.

I dashed up on the roof of my apartment one time to r escue my wayward little black cat called Wizard of Oz (ozzie for short) who had jumped for some mysterious reason from our balcony to a neighboring one, and from there to an outside fire escape ladder and up to the roof, and then couldn't g et back down. He'd got himself into a pickle into a part of the roof that could only be reached through a small window, and I had to wriggle through it far enough to be able to hold out my arms to him. Only after he had finally got the confidence to jump to me, and I had pulled him to safety, did I realise how far out I had leaned, and how close I had come to that 7 storey drop. I think of that to this day, 25 years later.

Like Jack, no, I do not think that there was some "divine intervention" (by the way, in the U.S. black cats are supposed to be unlucky LOL). I just managed by "thiiiiiis much" to keep my scale of balance on the right side, and Ozzie and I both survived the ordeal to go on and have a happy life together until it was his time to go.

That is the way life is, we get lucky, we get unlucky, sometimes the bad luck is the ultimate bad luck. There are no rules, and I don't dwell on how I survived this or that event. I just know that what didn't kill me, most certainly made me smarter, lol, and I don't take reckless chances any more. I am content to just live quietly now in my later years, and enjoy each day as it comes.

Answer 2

Yeah, every once in a while I realize that I could die in any moment, because it's the only thing we cannot forsee or avoid...having breakfast, riding on the bus to school, taking a shower, even sleeping!! I could die at any time and in the most unbelievable way if God wants it to be like that. So, it's good to be thankful and amazed for the fact of being alive every once in a while, or if it's possible, be thankful everyday.

Answer 3

Yup... I am always amazed by surviving some of the stuff I did as a cop. I am amazed that my partner was an extraordinarily skilled martial artist and was able to stop the attack of a knife wielding assailant long enough to gain the time to clear leather and take care of him...
Glad that another soldier volunteered to perform a task in Korea that spared my Dad's life in the Korean war or I wouldn't be here... It's an imponderable...

Answer 4

Yes, to some ppl who know me it might now seem like it but i pretty much feel that way everyday because even though im 12 i love everyday of my life and nothing really goes on but if i dont do something for example go to a party i regret it. I live everyday like im dying the next.

Answer 5

I do it almost every day. It took a lot to get here but Im so thankful to be alive.. I just look at things that have happend in my life and go what the heck that should have killed me.. man im glad it didnt.

Answer 6

Sometimes, especially when I think of all the times I should have been killed in a car accident due to my own bad driving as a teen. I guess I am very lucky.

Answer 7

Sometimes, when I have a nightmare about me dying, I'll wake up and think that.

Answer 8

This has happened to me more than once.
I have had Septic infections 5 times in my life...and one time I was in a coma for 6 days because of an infection...I am more than surprised I lived after that one.!!

Answer 9

I thank God for each and every day. There is so much designed to kill us all, that it amazes me any of us are still here.

Answer 10

I have a really "checkered" past. Drugs, alcohol, prison. Way to many good things in my life now that I don't deserve. So yes, but my "God" isn't something that most people would understand or accept.