Near Death Experiences

Robert K Goddard
Jul 30, 2017 · 2 min read
  • When I was six years old my best neighbor buddy Ben hit me in the temple with a wooden baseball bat when I was placing the ball on the tee. He knocked me out, I woke up on the couch. My Mom had carried me there.
  • When I was fourteen years old a climbing hold came off the wall as I was twenty-some feet off the deck, which was made of concrete. I slid down the wall and plummeted to the pavement. Time stopped. I rolled out of the fall and was not injured.
  • When I was nineteen years old the face of a boulder flaked on me. Just as I reached the top of that fateful boulder, the whole front face — a piece of stone twelve feet tall by six feet wide by four inches thick — peeled away from the monolith I had nearly surmounted. I fell backwards onto the thankfully flat-ish boulder beneath, and the giant stony cornflake crashed upon me, shattering into pebbles and dust. Eva, my friend and spotter, smartly stepped out of the way, and let me fall. I was bruised all about the torso, lost my wind for a moment or two, but was otherwise unscathed. The fall though was a long one: I replayed my life, my relationships, my worth and lack thereof.
  • When I was thirty-one years old I barely saved a skid on my motorcycle as I was bombing down a mountain highway at eighty-some miles an hour. There was gravel on the road, I brought too much speed into the curve, and I initially didn’t lean into it. The tires washed, the bike and I brushed across the road into the opposing lane of the right hand downhill curve. I countersteered and regained control just as I reached the shoulder which bordered a cliff at least a thousand feet tall if not two or three. No guard rail stood between me and certain doom. I realized, as my thirty years were condensed into a single second, that I am the Kerry who survives. I will not be aware of the Kerries who die. My once-friend Nick witnessed this event.
  • When I was thirty-three I nearly drowned in a hot tub while apnea training. This is a story I have lived, and written, and will convey once I’ve fully processed it.
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