Dicing with death…

Death it’s a heavy subject and not one to be picked up lightly. Understandably, as you get older you seem to think a little about it more as you begin to feel your mortality. Well, it creeps up on you and as Woody Allen quipped; “I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” There’s not much chance of that though.

They say that when your numbers up, it’s up, if that bullet has your name on it then you’re a goner, that death catches up with us all eventually, and that whole your life flashes before you eyes just before you die. Well, I’d rather watch a good movie, but yes, there’s no avoiding it I’m afraid. The Grim Reaper is just around the corner and we never know when we are going to turn it and bump into him.

Yes, when your numbers up, it’s up, but there’s no knowing when that will be. I read that in the 9/11 attacks, whilst so many died, a few cheated death or at least postponed it for another day. One person was late because it was his turn to buy donuts, another missed the bus because it left just a minute early, still another had to stop off to buy plasters for her blisters; she had put on new shoes that day. They would all have died if they’d followed their usual routine, but for one reason or another they didn’t. This time that bullet didn’t have their name on it.

I wonder how many times I have narrowly avoided death? I’ve often missed motorway accidents by passing the scene just before or after they’ve happened. Sometimes things hadn’t gone to plan and I’ve been running late, other times I’ve set out a little early. But what if I’d set out when I’d planned to? Would I have been involved, a goner even? Who knows?

There have been a couple of times in my life that I’ve narrowly missed the Dark Angel. Once in Whitby I was standing under a cliff and an RAF jet flew overhead causing a cliff fall. The ground shook as tons of rock slid away and fell only a few feet from where I was standing, a couple of small rocks even landed at my feet. Six feet closer to the cliff and I would have been buried under the rubble. Another time a car hit my wife and me head on, writing of our trusty XR3i in the process. All the windows smashed inwards, we span around and around, but we came out of it with only whiplash and bruises.

I think that both qualify as brushes with death. Just a little too close for comfort.

I sometimes wonder if I’ve been lucky and just missed bumping into the chap with that deadly virus at the airport, turned the corner only moments before the drunk with a knife in his pocket has been thrown out of the pub, gone in through the door an instant before that coping stone crashed to the pavement unnoticed.

It’s all chance. He’ll get me eventually though.

Cheery old soul, aren’t I?