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One day while on a bus break to stretch our legs, we all went playing near a tree, and the boy climbed it quite quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The tree wasn\u2019t tall; the brand he stood on was just about higher than his father\u2019s head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then he slipped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t know how these things happen and I never will. In the blink of an eye, the boy had landed head-first on the ground below and wasn\u2019t moving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My parents rushed us away from the scene so we wouldn\u2019t witness what was happening. I could hear his mother screaming and I could see his father waiting anxiously for the ambulance to arrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ambulance got there and took him away, along with his family. We never saw them again. I prayed he would survive, and I believe he did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, I have never climbed a tree since. And when my boys started climbing trees, my heart freezes with fear every time I see them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few years later, life would show me how resilient humans can be. I would save my brother from certain death by electrocution, and he, only two years old back then, would fight back the sparks with his baby fingers until I arrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I like to believe that Cyprus Boy survived that fall. That his parents and sister were by his bedside when he opened his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that he is now as old as I am, with a family of his own, with children who climb trees, and with a story to tell them about fearlessness and the fight for life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was on a family vacation the first time I witnessed the fragility of the human body. My father had taken us to Cyprus for a few weeks. We went on a guided tour along with other visitors. The tour lasted several days, during which my family befriended an Egyptian family whose children were the … <\/p>\n