I can recall a wise man’s words of wisdom that I wish I could put a name to. Right now, however, I can only quote ‘There are moments which mark your life. Moments, when you realize nothing, will ever be the same and life is divided into two parts, before this and after this.’ These moments differ in nature, and not all of them can give you good feelings. One of the moments that I can say mark my life is a near-death experience, a moment that might have been brief, but that one which had taught me the true meaning of life in its passing.
The trip that our own family and the family friends had taken to Malaysia was almost towards its end and having seen most of the places we had wanted to visit, my parents and their friends settled for a peaceful day on the beach while the two of us siblings and two of our friends from the same family headed in pursuit of a hard adventure. The physical energy we were feeling could be measured by our choice of adventure since heading up the Mount Kinabalu was the choice that most of us settled with.
Despite the fact that our siblings were young, my brother only 8 and Cary’s brother 10, we were determined to make it all the way to the top to see the view around. The journey was marked by many breaks and the two of us practically carrying both our siblings up the hard climbs. After a lot of effort to do our best, we settled for celebration only halfway through our journey up because both of us knew that our brothers were too young to make it through the steep climb in one piece. Appreciating the view barely at the edge of one of the rocks was easy and entertaining until I felt my brother gave me a shove just for his amusement.
While I struggled to regain balance I had lost, I saw myself falling thousands of feet to my sure death. In that one split second, I felt like my entire life flashed before my eyes. It suddenly because clear to me the type of person that I had been and how I had made so many unforgivable mistakes. Not only that but that one moment also made clear to me the regrets that I was hiding within my heart, all the things I had never said and all the things that I had said.
As I was suspended in a place where time and space held no meaning, a force jerked me into reality as Carly’s hand grabbed at my shirt and pulled me back with enough force to bring me crashing to the ground. I remained in a state of dizziness while I heard her yell at my brother for the stupid mistake he had made until she took a glimpse of the vacant expression that my face held.
That moment had come and gone but there was my life before the incident, and then there was a part of me I discovered afterward. I found in me a person who wanted to become perfect after that and to become a role model to all those who saw me as their hero. I found that I was listening more to my parents, and I was trying to make them happy rather than ignoring their wishes anymore. I had seen my friends more clearly and eventually; I learn to recognize the bonds of sincerity and all else held no meaning.
They say that ‘What doesn’t kill you makes to stronger’, but through that experience, that phrase was no more just a phrase rather I saw it as a reality. I was a changed person and the people who lived with me learned to appreciate the change more.
Works Cited
Pinterest. Explore these ideas and more! n.d. 23 February 2016. Web
