A Very Merry Unbirthday

As some of you are aware, I recently celebrated a birthday. I would like to thank everyone who took the time to send a happy thought or comment in my direction.

Birthdays serve to let me celebrate having had the opportunity to navigate my path for one more year. I rejoice in my friendships, and the encouragement and comfort each one provides. I have come to treasure the knowledge that all along this path, I have made the right choices (something that is made indubitably clear on an almost daily basis these days).

Each birthday, I take time to reflect on the near-misses in my life, or what I like to call "mulligans". Here are some of the most memorable, either from my personal recollection or from stories shared by my family:

- As a toddler, my first steps into the ocean during a visit to the beach immediately introduced me to the undertow. I was saved by my father, who grabbed the back of my diaper and lifted me out of the water.

- Still a toddler, I fell out of the door of a moving car as we traveled around a curve. Once again, I was saved by my father's quick thinking and, you guessed it, my diaper.

- As a pre-teen, I was rescued from drowning by my tri-athlete grandfather after I thought it would be clever to ride on top of an inflatable tube down a pool slide. Not so much.

- In the late 70s, my house was struck by a tornado in the wee hours while my parents and I were sleeping. It picked the house up and moved it, intact, three feet off the foundation. For those of you who don't know first hand, yes, it does sound like a train.

- During high school, I almost drove a moped off a cliff at the beach during Spring Break. I ended up flipping the bike to keep from going over the edge. The scenery I observed while the bike was airborne for those few seconds was spectacular. Then I had to drive the moped back to the rental shop while my newly-mangled knee, which strongly resembled shredded wheat, got sandblasted. My first and last time on a moped.

- After high school, I survived a freak, single-car accident that left the reporting State Trooper in awe. I clearly remember thinking, "I am not in an upright position," as my car did a nose over end flip and two side rolls down a 50 foot embankment. Mr. Trooper told my father he'd "never seen anyone walk away from a car that looked like that". It didn't really hit home until a few days later, when I went to collect some personal items from the car where it rested in the junkyard; I was reduced to tears when I saw the collapsed roof and the MacPherson struts poking through the hood of the car. This accident was a life changer.

- In the late 90s, my Mother was visiting me in California. We ordered in some Chinese food one evening, and during dinner (okay, fine, during laughing and talking while I was eating) I choked violently on a thin strip of beef when it draped over my epiglottis. I was unable to communicate or breathe. After a couple of minutes of near panic I realized that if I breathed very slowly through my nose, a little air could bypass the blockage. I forced myself to calm down, and then concentrated all of my will to locate and constrict the muscles that could shift the position of the obstruction. After an exhausting effort, I finally pushed the beef off of the tiny ledge and was able to breathe freely again.

Recent unpleasantries aside, there are lots more near-misses, but these are some of the most noteworthy. These experiences have made me cognizant of what a gift life is, and that with this many mulligans, I'm expected to do something really great with it.

So I am.