The newspaper reported on the front page the story of a man in India, a victim of the tsunami, who survived ("Just like Robinson Crusoe, tsunami victim survives 25 days alone on a remote island," The Daily Astorian, Jan. 28).
Of the 100 or so islanders, Michael Mangle alone survived the killer wave. After the rescue, he said, "I thought I would die, and worse than that, I would die all alone." A man trapped in the train wreck in California used his own blood wrote love notes to his wife and children because he thought it would soon be time to draw his last breath.
"I thought I would die" is the expression many recent survivors of the tsunami, the train wreck, Marines in firefights in Iraq and others have used to describe close calls. Those of us who have not gone through such near-death experiences are unable to understand what they underwent.
Most people have strong convictions about the time of death, even if it is a simple numbers game: "When your number comes up, that's it." Time of death depends on many factors, some under our control, some not.
Often those who have escaped death have a new appreciation of life. They realize every day is a gift. The near-death experience becomes a baptism, a dying to an old way of life and a rising to a new life. We can take to heart the phrase repeated in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
