More From The Friendship Files: Another Near Death Experience

I missed half a day at work yesterday.  Not true.  I missed half a day in my classroom because I was pulled out for a regional training.  It was a Very Good Regional Training and I am so much the better teacher and employee now for it. I actually ended up working two and a half extra hours without compensation,  just for the privilege of saying I received this Very Good Regional Training. However, it would have to happen on the day that my assistant and friend, previously referred to as “ReGifting Friend” experienced another near death experience.  It was rather exciting, she actually did almost die and they called the paramedics and everything.  Tons of cool drama.  Sorry I missed it.  I experienced nothing quite so exciting or adrenaline boosting as that in my Very Good Regional Training. 

When I returned to work today, there was ReGifting Friend, cute and skinny as ever.  Her near death experience certainly didn’t add any stress pounds to her body.  She told me the story and, like most of her stories, it is definitely worth retelling here.

At lunch, it seems ReGifting Friend was eating her very healthy low cal (that’s why she’s skinny) salad with cherry tomatoes on it.  In one particular bit, seems a fiesty tomato got a bit excited and decided to jump down her throat. Well, being the obstinate tomato that it was, it lodged right there in her throat.  It wouldn’t move up, it wouldn’t move down. 

ReGifting Friend definitely exhibited all the signs of a choking individual, the most notable being she could not talk and she was turning blue.  Two others in the staff room with her tried the Heimlich maneuver on her.  They were not successful.  Well, as we all know the human body cannot function well for very long without air and ReGifting Friend had exceeded that point.  She was quite aware that if something didn’t happen in just seconds she would be blacking out and in serious trouble. 

In those few brief seconds before she passed out, ReGifting Friend remembers thinking, “Oh My God.  I’m going to die right here at the school my children attend the very week of my daughter’s birthday.”

Dying.

At a place your children have to revisit daily. 

During week for your family that is usually celebratory and not sad.

ReGifting Friend’s last thoughts before she went unconscious were not of her own well being or even fear of dying.  It was for her kids and how they would be impacted, not just temporarily but in weeks, days and years to come.  This is the friend I’ve come to call ReGifting Friend.  Like the Energizer Bunny she does keep giving and giving… and going and going.

The fiesty tomato was downed with one final thrust just below the sternum.  ReGifting Friend’s airways were clear and she was still, though only barely, conscious.  A few minutes later she was fine and laughing about the mishap but later weeping about the impact of what she thought may have been her final moments. 

She goes on to tell humorously of the 5 buff paramedics who walked in and would not leave until they checked her out completely.  (Yeah, uh huh.  I only wish I’d been there to see that! I do miss all the fun!)

Later that day, my youngest who had to go home with ReGifting Friend for the afternoon while I was at that Very Good Regional Training bounced up to her and said, “Hey!  Did you hear?  Somebody almost died at school today!  The paramedics were here.”  ReGifting Friend just laughed. 

More than 24 hours later when she told me the story, ReGifting Friend’s eyes welled up with tears again as she remembered those thoughts of dying before the tomato was dislodged.

And I ask you…what would you want your last thoughts in this life to be?

The Friendship Files Are Born

The Friendship Files began with my story about Sleepovers and Regifting.  The humorous anecdote told to me by a friend, made its way onto my blog with full prior approval by those I was writing about.  The friends I  wrote about loved the retelling and asked for more.  The friends who read the story were entertained, amused, and inspired. Then came the Friends Who Pull Off A Great Bash,  Christmas Party Friend and Mr. Knows, and Mexico Friend and Husband.  I currently have Mr. Christmas Eve Party, Colorado, Single Girl, Gamblin’ Betty, Aspiring Writer Friend Back East (AWFBE), Semi-Professional Photographer Friend (SPPF) and others waiting for me to tell the story that reveals the way they’ve impacted me, inspired me and encouraged me by simply being my friends. Sometimes they’ve simply done nothing more than make me laugh at times when I thought I might sink into the quagmire of despair.  They rescued me, each and every one of them by just being them and by loving me in their own peculiar ways. I am beginning to have people line up to tell me their story and have me write it.  I love this!  Each story tells me something more about the way life is, we are, family can be.  Stay tuned.  There are so many ways my friends enrich my life and make me a far better person than I would be otherwise. 

There are also those friends who stopped in at a point in my  life when I needed whatever they had to offer, or maybe they needed what I had to give, but they didn’t stay long.  They all taught me something because I was willing to pay attention. This is what my friends and aquaintances do for me.  They move me toward being the best possible me I can be.  If you are blessed, your friends do this for you as well.  I only hope I am the kind of friend that returns the favor in this regard. Maybe in these vignettes that I’ve written and will be writing you’ve found something of life, of love, of hope, of the human condition we all partake in that resonates with you.  If so, I hope you’ll comment.  If not, I hope you’ll comment.  No matter what, I do hope that The Friendship Files bring you hope, encouragement, inspiration, laughter, and when needed that clear realization and assessment that only you can make for yourself when you realize you’ve bumped into an area of your life that you need to take control of and master so that it doesn’t master you anymore. 

May “Further Tales From The Friendship Files” encourage you and help you find the strength and determination that you need when you need it most, the humor to help you laugh at yourself and the desire to seek to be the very best you possible…after all…that’s what you were born for.   

P.S.  Mr. Christmas Eve Party don’t despair. Even though I haven’t written your story yet …your graciousness in inviting me in to your family’s inner circle at a time when I was most lonely meant so very much to me.  May your kind multiply and fill this earth rapidly.