Today I’m joining the blog tour for My Second Life. I’m sharing an extract from the book with thanks to Rachel Gilbey at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me on the tour and to the author for providing the extract.

Blurb:

We all have two lives. We only get to experience living in the second after we realize we only have just one.

I have my first real scare in life when I get attacked by a kangaroo when I am seven. My first brush with the cliff-face edge of death comes when I am 12. My dad drives the family down the dangerous Skipper’s Canyon dirt road in New Zealand in a rented minivan.

Including the occasion I am almost involved in two different plane flight crashes, in the same night, there have been at least a half dozen more occasions when I have been within a moment’s inattention of being killed.

However, none of those frightening incidents compare to what I experience after my son is abducted.

This memoir is the story of how I used the traumatic experiences of my life to give me strength to forge on during a 13 year fight to be a father to my son.

What did it take for me to get to my second life?
It took me to truly understand what fear is.

Extract:

Everyone on the plane feels the abrupt arrest to our descent. We all glance around at each other’s nervous faces.

What on earth just happened? 

The affable voice of the pilot comes over the loudspeaker of the Canadair CRJ-100 aircraft. “Well, good evening again folks, we were just about to complete our landing into Flagstaff airport, and I was putting down the landing gear and the little light that is supposed to come on to tell me that the wheel is down and locked in place didn’t come on, so we had to abort the landing. Sorry about the bump.”

The news puts all of us onboard the SkyWest Airlines flight in a delicate spot of peril. Trapped on an airborne plane that may or may not have working landing gear.

It is not a question that often gets put up for debate. With an emergency, what do people consider is the essential triad of functional systems that is necessary to safely land an airplane? I think wheels, wings, and brakes sweep the vote every time. With the current situation on this flight, the pilot can only guarantee us a duopoly.

This is not good.

Those fortunate enough to be in window seats peer outside. Those unfortunate enough to be sitting next to someone occupying a window seat assault the people in the window seats in a panic to get to see outside.

The fading light of dusk makes seeing anything impossible. Added to the fact an aircraft’s wheels are situated under the fuselage, and therefore are out of sight in broad daylight. That does not stop a single passenger from fighting to get the best vantage point at a portal.

The captain continues, “we will have to turn back to Phoenix, so emergency services can watch us as we land. In case the landing gear gives out.”

Everyone’s face presses harder against the windows. On a scale of one to ten, the apprehension in the plane is at an eleven point five. It is tense and uncomfortable. Potentially a pressure cooker stuffed with the worst of human reactions to stress. Not that the combined anxiety gives much of any solution to resolve the problem at hand.

There are certain occasions when it is perfectly acceptable to let raw emotions be displayed in public. Climbing out of a mine collapse after 40 days underground is one. Some people on the plane considered this situation appropriate as well.

I pretend to be glib about it. I have already died three times once.

This flight is taking me to Flagstaff to realize a dream. To tick hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon off my bucket list of things to do before I nearly die again. To be fortunate enough to just stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon is a surreal experience. There is no single location in the world that so perfectly addresses one’s psyche with the full-frontal assault that a human’s problems are insignificant.

At Flagstaff airport, I have a car reservation waiting for me and a local hotel booked. Tomorrow morning, I plan to drive to the national park and take in the splendid views from the rim. The day after, I intend to brave the chilly December winds and ice coated trails to hike to the bottom.

Less than a year earlier, the car accident had almost killed me. Sporting multiple broken bones and massive internal injuries the first night in the ICU, I coded three times. Somehow, someway, the doctors resuscitated me each time. Nothing like a near death experience to make a person appreciate they only have one chance at life.

But even that experience was not cathartic enough for me to enter my second life.

Right now, on the plane, I am praying for a third chance at a first life.

After the car accident, I initially suffered from severe depression. While also holding onto a great deal of anger towards the truck driver, who crossed double white lines to hit me. To where my sole motivation during rehab was to get strong enough to go around to the address listed on the police report and hurt him in the way he hurt me.

My older sister told me that the best retaliation I could have on anyone who hurts me is to go and have the best life possible.

A remedy that got me through some dark moments.

And spared me 15 to 20 years in jail.

***

My Second Life is available from Amazon.

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