12,256 Days Alive

I wonder how different things would be if I had died.

If, when my playful, and now dead over a year, stepfather tossed me into the deep end and I sunk like the not-swimming rock I was at the time, my mother hadn’t noticed. If she hadn’t dived in, after kicking off shoes, socks, and watch, and pulled me up. She bemoaned for years that I ruined her hearing aid with that “stunt”. As if I had any choice or say in the matter of drowning.

Or, if when I developed pneumonia some time afterward if I hadn’t shaken it.

Or if in one of the car accidents I’ve been in, I wasn’t so fortunate as to be able to walk away.

Or if I had been successful in any of my suicide attempts.

I suppose it would matter as to the when of my death. If I had died in high school, or before? It’s a horrible thought. Like that Christmas movie, I’ve never seen with the angels and bells.

It’s a Wonderful Life. That’s the name of the movie! That’s what it is. I had to Google it. I should watch that.

I know that I have had a least a minor impact on several peoples’ lives. I do. But Gods does it feel like I’m screaming into an echo chamber sometimes.

I’ve survived a lot. I’m sure I’ll be fine in daylight.