Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire When did you first feel your mortality?

I was 42 when I got diagnosed with cancer. It felt like a life changing experience for a few years. But I had to have health insurance to get through it, so a couple of months later I was back at work and after a while it became business as usual again. Now it's just a distant memory that I rarely ever feel the need to revisit.

I was 6' tall and weighed about 155 there for a while. First day back at work I checked in with the Human Resources guy to get everything going and he says, "Looks like you've taken off a few pounds".

I just said, "Yeah, but I can't recommend this diet".

What a doofus.

I'm a fan of bands that harmonize well. The BeeGees are unique. Were unique. Here's a couple hours, groove music-

Probably when I lost my brother in a car accident. And then again this past October when I took my wife into the ER for stomach flu and found out she had a grapefruit size tumor in her abdomen. Every day a gift.

Seems like it really changes a person.

How can you mend a broken heart?

How can a loser ever win?

I don’t drink much any more. All three of my younger brothers suffered from alchoholism. One died of liver cancer and the other two took the .30 caliber cure. There’s something about cleaning up a bloody mess that makes you wonder.... I thought about how the end will come for me; sure as hell not that way. I miss my brothers every day, especially when I’m deer hunting. But life is for the living, right?

After falling thru while Ice fishing I was unable to get out so I swam under the Ice like a Damm muskrat to the bank and wiggle out. I swear my dick was bigger before that day.

Tan Son Nhut, 1966, guy I was working with walked into a C-123 prop one night. Hell of a thing to see, got me to thinking about how quick things can go South.

Probably a year and a half ago when I turned 80.

Jim

Fireball2;
Good evening to you sir, please accept condolences on the loss of your uncle and thanks for the interesting thread you've been the catalyst for.

Speaking personally my first was the evening of Feb 01st 1978. It was -40 that Saskatchewan night and I was working in an unheated garage under my car when it fell on me resulting in a myriad of injuries including a crushed 11th and 12th vertebrae, some major head trauma and crushed internal organs. Something - I believe it was angels but I didn't see anything, but something lifted that car off of me. I'd crawled about 10 feet away and was trying to get to a phone when family found me roughly 20 minutes later. They loaded me into the back of the neighbors station wagon and took me into the nearest hospital where the top surgeon suggested my family gather as I wasn't going to make it.

Anyway I didn't cross over, but came away with a vastly different outlook on life.

Four years later when we were 19 my best buddy Scott rolled his car out of Lloydminster, AB and didn't make it. It took me a long time to reason why it was his day and it wasn't mine.

There were lots more similar moments in my life along the way that I've survived and have taught me whats important and what is less so - for me anyway.

Thanks for the thread again and for letting me share/ruminate on life, I appreciate it.

All the best to you and yours this year Fireball.

Dwayne

When I was 13, I started helping my dad in the mortuary prep room. Helped him remove bodies from hospital beds, cars, airplanes and even a combine or two. Never could get into drinking and driving, even as a kid. In fact, it made me over-protective of my own kids.

Dwayne, always nice to hear from you and thank you for the thoughts. My uncle wasn't well liked and yet we were surprised how his death affected us.

You realize there is no other explanation for the car being lifted off of you than divine intervention, within the context of your relaying the story how it happened? No one was around? Yet you got out from under a car that had crushed you. And people that have no belief don't know how this can happen! Thank you for telling about that. I know of a man that died that way, and there were no angels there that day, or at least were not allowed to save him.

No one understands the "Why me and not him" question better than someone that has survived while another hasn't. Bless you friend.

Well said!

When my wife died in 1995 on my birthday no less, and I was 'it' for our two young kids.

I was reminded of it in 2011 while hiking very dangerous mountain goat country. I climbed down and shot a lesser goat in safer country.
As a younger man I would have never done that.

Wow....no words, other than alcohol can be a real scourge. I know many people enslaved as I write this.

Razz - so sorry for your loss. I would guess the emotional pain with the death of one's own child is beyond simple description.

I am thankful to have never experienced it and pray i never do. I believe surviving that takes a greater strength than what i can imagine.

When i was diagnosed with kidney cancer ,just before Christmas 1999,i had two kids under 5 years old and the Dr. Said come back in for the surgery jan. 2nd.so you can spend Christmas with your familyi ll do my best to save you ,but,i won t no how far its spread until i get you opened up.was a muted holiday season and i thank God every day they caught it before it spread to far.i still lost the kidney,two ribs,part of my diaphragm,8" of intestine.
i weighed 127 lbs. When i got out of the cancer ward and was a shaking mess for weeks.that kinda shook me up alright.

Probably when my first son was born. May have been reinforced a few times at work through the years.

Having kids definitely has a way of putting things in perspective.

Can’t imagine having kids in my 20’s. Not sure I had the sight to achieve perspective in those years. Now, it’s pretty damn clear.

I have a good friend that has lost her husband and three children. One to a car accident and the others to cancer or liver failure. She has a very strong faith in God which I know helps immensely but I can't even begin to understand how much pain she must feel at times.
Makes me more aware of my mortality, no doubt.