One Time, I Could Have Died

We published a poem in our undergraduate literary magazine once that was titled, "One Time I Could Have Died."

That sounds like something an 18-year-old would write, but really, it was from a faculty member as he watched his 13 year old daughter stand on the edge of a cliff.  She was relishing in the ocean spray and the thrill of being on the wet rocks.  All he could see was all the danger that she could fall into.

Must have been a good poem if I remember it after 10+ years.

Anyway, the other day, I could have died:

They've been doing a lot of rock climbing at our gym lately, when Daddy takes them.  We should not be surprised that this has made climbers of them, and one day, they decided that the lowest tree branch was not too low after all.

It took them a good 2 hours to figure it out.  The first 30 minutes, they asked for my help again and again and I kept repeating the rule from Mrs. Queeney when we were attempting to climb her crab tree:  You have to get it on your own so that you know you can get down on your own.

I reconciled myself to the eventuality that we would go to the ER that day, or one day in the near future.  But I decided to choose the injury:  no head wounds from skulls crashing on bricks, and soon after this photo, I cut down those sucker branches on the ground so that no eyes would be poked out, either. 

I don't know.  They might not be that high up.  Higher than they've been before, though.