Have you ever experienced a moment when you truly believed that you were going to die?
I was about nine years old.
My dad and I had just finished putting out some hay for the cows.
My dad noticed that the door to the upper level of the barn was wide open and he asked me to climb up and close it.
He would meet me back at the house.
This was a very old barn where the main level was like any other barn but the second level above the was a little home.
My sisters and I used this old dwelling as our clubhouse.
At one time there was an exterior staircase but the horses and cows liked to rub up against it so eventually the staircase fell off.
After that, our only way to get up there was a precarious ladder that my sisters built from scrap wood.
I climbed up, grabbed the door handle and pulled it towards me.
I was standing on the top rung of the ladder when the door closed and I lost my balance.
I fell backwards. It seemed like a long time before I hit the dirt.
I’d had the wind knocked out of me before but this was different.
It seemed like an eternity and I still hadn’t taken a breath. In a panic, I thought that if I didn’t do something I was going to die out there.
I started running towards the house. It had been about a minute now since I fell off the ladder.
Running without breathing was awful.
I remember thinking that I must have collapsed my lungs. I was going to miss my family.
I knew that my death would cause them immense sadness.
It had been about a minute and a half to two minutes now since I fell off the ladder. I was crying, still running, not quite as fast or coordinated as before. I didn’t know what else to do. I was completely desperate. I was done. This is it.
And then it happened. Something changed in my chest.
I drew in a huge breath.
I collapsed onto the ground breathing in and out as deep and fast as physically possible.
As I lay there recovering, I remember thanking God for making me breathe again.
In all my life, that is the only time that I really, truly believed that I was going to die.
That experience taught me that death isn’t just something that happens to other people.
Life is a precious and delicate thing.
