Yesterday I decided to be helpful and it almost killed me.The neighbors were disassembling an old cubby house we’d donated to them for their kids.  It was up on four heavy wooden poles and rather than them have to remove them all I lead them down the garden path to some others which were the fence posts of a redundant fence which needed removing.  I’d previously removed some and they were laying on the ground.  But the one near us was standing upright so I thought it’d make a good demo.    I went to it, gave it a bear hug, then demonstrating how you just have to wrench these beasts toward you to loosen them, I heaved backwards holding the heavy wooden post, taller and as heavy as me.  In an instant I was cascading to earth with my dance partner, my head hitting the earthen ground with a thud but no crunch.  My head hurt and I was jarred but as usual, no squeal or scream, my brain and body just don’t work that way.  I was more concerned with how to make the three observers shut up and stop asking me questions about my predicament.  After all a sudden blow to the head isn’t exactly the time to answer questions.

But what I didn’t know was that three inches from my head was a large granite bolder twice the size of my head which could well have been the end of me.  Perhaps there’s no such thing as ‘if’… one is either dead or one isn’t.  I stood up as the group told of the adventure and informed me how comical I’d looked dancing with this wooden pole as I crashed to the ground and how, thank Goodness, I’d just missed that boulder.

It occurred to me later that we often think we can divert from death, or envision our own death as something more glamorous, stereotypical.  Death by tango with a wooden post?  That never occurred to me.

Donna Williams *)
author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter

http://www.donnawilliams.net