I've never stared death in the face. No car accidents, no major illnesses or surgeries.

::knocks wood::

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Got stuck on the wrong side of a reef in a Sunfish that I couldn't control, and the currents were sucking us in fast. One of the beach guys at the hotel rescued us by windsurfing out and giving me directions to avoid the big smashup.

Medically the infected haematoma and the appendicitis my mother didn't believe in were probably the most serious.

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I was about to say never, but on reflection, I'll have to go with dark alley + gun to the head. Funny how you can forget stuff.

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I got pulled out of some very rough surf by a very alert lifeguard once. It was the sort of thing where I was just realizing that I was in trouble when he swooped in out of nowhere. Kid really earned his pay for the entire summer that day, so far as I'm concerned.

I was sorta on the other end of that once (sorta because it wasn't rough surf). This little kid just got this look on his face and started to drop. I blew my whistle and went in while the other guards cleared the area. I scooped him up and he just went limp in my arms.

The reactions were weird. One beach patron was a former guard who 'talked shop' constantly and tried to give me a little lecture on my technique ("You really should have taken a float or used a reaching implement... you KNOW its 'reach, throw, row, go'" "He was twenty feet away where I could stand. And he was too exhausted to grasp anything. Go away, I have to take care of paperwork"). The Uncle who was allegedly watching the kid started picking on him about making such a big deal. The other guards and I were just duuuude because it was all so fast and subtle and clear -- he didn't cough or splash or make any noise, just got this look on his face and sank. I can still feel him just collapse on me when I lifted him up.

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The problem I have with faith in cosmic justice is that I thought that I deserved a lot of things that happened to me. It took a very long time to realize that I didn't. So fuck karma.

The only active vengeance I've taken consists of occasionally going to an annual party that many friends, and ex-friends, attend. I do not misbehave. I've never so much as shot a dirty look at someone there. But my presence seems to make a couple of people uncomfortable. And I find that rather satisfying.

When were you the closest to dying?

Hm. I was close to killing myself for a few years, and didn't only because I was afraid I'd screw it up. But I don't think I've been in any "I could have died!" situations.

Oh, wait, someone almost smashed a sofa arm into my skull once. It was a pretty heavy piece of wood, so if he'd connected that would have done some damage.

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virus at 2 weeks

passenger in car wreck, suburban vs. semi truck full of gravel

driver in car wreck, broadsided 3 inches behind my seat

various college nights blacked out

- not really sure which would be closest to death, but I feel lucky to be mostly unscathed.

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I can't say I've probably ever felt close, though gawd knows I've put myself in some situations where it would've been a fair point for darwin (mostly involving ridgelines, mesa tops and lightening. Gravity's had a few targets of opportunity as well.)

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Cute, fluffy kitties!

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When were you the closest to dying?

Hmmm... About 13 or so, I tried to ride my bicycle across a busy street. I looked right, but didn't look left and got hit by a car. Trashed the bike and I flew about twenty feet. I was bruised and scraped up quite a bit, but I lucked out and didn't even break anything. The bruise on my calf where the bumper hit me lasted for a couple of months, and the weird, gristly feeling of my calf in that spot lasted a few years after that.

So physically, not all that close to death, but the car wouldn't have had to be going much faster to have seriously injured or killed me.

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I was just doing this with a friend of mine the other day, as we tried to figure out how many parallel universes there are in which we are dead.

At 14, misjudged distance and rode my bicycle directly in front of an oncoming car. Missed me by a foot, maybe.

Fell asleep driving over the Smokey Mountains at night, and woke up headed for the guard rail above a sheer 3000 foot drop. Two seconds more and bam, fiery death.

In the passenger seat of my car as my previously-referenced psycho boyfriend drove around and around the interstate loop around Nashville, yelling about how he was going to kill us both and be done, and why I was crying? Fortunately, we ran out of gas.

Four years ago, woke up with a funny feeling in my chest, two weeks after minor foot surgery. Can't explain why I knew it wasn't just too much caffeine. Turned out I had a pulmonary embolism, and they kept me in the hospital on heparin for a week, wouldn't let me up even to pee. I didn't fully realize until later that I probably would have died if I hadn't called the EMTs.

Probably some other random stuff too, especially with psycho-man, but, at least four alternate universes in which I am dead. I feel very lucky. I used to belive in karma, but I don't anymore. And like Strega said, I used to think I deserved the shit that happened to me, and now I know I don't.

brenda, how do you forget a gun to the head? You must be a very calm person.

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