The doctors told her for months that there was only one bun in the oven, although she has told me many, many, many times that she was always sure that there where two little bundles of joy growing inside of her. She just kept getting bigger and bigger. I have heard multiple times that by six months she could no longer do the dishes, not because she was exhausted (which i am sure she was), but instead because she could no longer reach the sink. I have tried to apologize, she never listens though, just smiles and goes on about her day. After months and months of my dad telling the doctors he was sure that she was having twins, they (the doctors) finally admitted they might have made a mistake, and seven and a half months into it they were sure.
I made my debut on May 1st, the year of our lord nineteen hundred and eighty six. I didn't come in to it screaming like my brother had, in fact, my first act in this world was nearly killing myself and my mother. From the stories I have been told, my brother arrived around noon. He had ten fingers and ten toes, the very picture of health.
If you don't know anything about twins, it is not unusual for them to be a couple of minutes apart, sometime five, even ten, but that is pushing it. Everything had gone normal with my brother so there the team of doctors and nurses sat, along with my dad, waiting for me to pop my head out and say hello to a world that was so excited to meet me. Five minutes passed, nothing. Ten minutes passed, still nothing.
My Father was, at the time a nurse, and knew that something was wrong after the twenty minute mark. The doctors assured him everything was okay and continued to wait. Thirty minutes passed, still nothing. My dad brought up the idea of a c-section, again he was told that everything was under control and not to worry. Forty minutes pass, still no Micah.
I can not begin to imagine the thoughts that were running through my parents head as the second hand ticked on, unaware of the child that was fighting to live, even before he had been born. forty-five minutes pass, still nothing.
Around fifty minutes after my brothers birth my mom's blood pressure started to drop, as hers dropped so did mine. Something was going terribly wrong. The once calm doctors "sprang" into action. They rushed my dad out, only telling him that they were gonna have to cut me out. If I have another child I sincerely hope I don't have to go through what he went through on that day, gaining a son but losing a wife and another son.
I will give the doctors credit, they may have been slow to action, but once the fire was lit, they had me out in under two minutes. I was blue when i came into this world, that's right blue. Lack of oxygen turns you the prettiest colors. Almost exactly an hour after my brother, I had arrived... but i was alive, and for that I thank God everyday. Once i was able to get air into my new little lungs i recovered quickly. I was a monster in the n.i.c.u though weighing in at over eight pounds. My brother tipped the scales at over eight pounds as well. All i have to say is my poor mother.
This was my first near life experience, as Tyler Durdin would say, but not even close to the last. Yet another reason for my faith. For some reason, it would seem, God wants to keep me around. For years I have questioned why i lived that day, why God chose to let me live, while another died. All I can come up with is that there has to be some kind of plan, a purpose. I can feel him tugging at my soul.
Flash forward a couple of years. It is my eleventh birthday, both me and my brother are excited, we have gone to a rock park outside of Sioux Falls South Dakota. It is our favorite spot, we climb for hours. We have gotten squirt guns as presents, and not cheap ones, super soakers. so we make up a game called squirt tag. There is a plateau about eighty feet off the ground. It is perfect for sniping people. I climb around the back, so no one will see me and go to the top. I walk over to the edge and look down. There are two out croppings with perfect sights. the first is about a three foot drop and sticks out about five feet, From there it is maybe four feet down to the next one. the lower on is more narrow though, sticking out only about three feet. I am excited and jump to hard. I bounce off the first landing and before i know it i am watching my squirt gun fall seventy feet to the canyon floor, it lands a couple feet from my brother who looks up, I am sure, half expecting me to be following it. I can not explain why I didn't. Floating is not the right word, but i am no longer on the rock, and i am not a pile on the ground, something is holding me in the air, and does not let go until my feet are firmly back on the plateau. I get chills just thinking about it.
The most recent incident was an open challenge to God. I had been hanging out with an old friend when I realized that I needed to go home, because I had forgotten to take my insulin that night. It was late, or early, and the most direct route back to my house was to take gravel. Things had not been going my way, I had just broken up with my long time girlfriend, I hated my job, and I was feeling sorry for myself. I had a crappy little Honda civic that i affectionately called the shit box. I was driving way to fast, had the radio cranked, and was screaming at God, telling him to fuck off, that i didn't want or need him in my life, and that i wished i had never been born. Do not tempt the Lord your God. As soon as I was done with the thought i felt the car slip, I clearly remember letting go of the wheel and smirking, as if to say lets see what you got. The car turned sideways and headed for the ditch, I glanced at the speedometer, before I hit the ditch i was going 60 mph, and then I was air born, getting tossed around the car like a rag doll. When the car landed, somehow on its wheels, it had stopped running, apparently i had forgotten to keep my foot on the clutch... wonder how that happened. I was in the drivers seat, both passenger windows and the rear window where gone, shards of glass and moist soil filled the car. my phone was no where in sight, everything that had been in my car was outside. The roof had collapsed everywhere except for above the drivers seat. I opened the door, got out to make sure I was ok. I was a little sore, but didn't seem to be bleeding. I did a quick specticals testicles wallet and watch, hoped back in my car and turned the key, it fired right up, I got out one more time and tore my front bumper off, as it was perpendicular to the ground, and drove home, dug around in the dirt, found my phone and went to bed more than a little shaken
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These are just a few stories that prove i should no longer be here, and yet here I sit. So on the third day of this journey I am grateful to be alive and well, and as bad as life can get that puts things into perspective. On my worst days, I think back, and have to remind myself that having a bad day beats the hell out of being dead.
-Micah
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