Maybe it was the lingering and compelling essence of my angel experience as a child. Or the stark and haunting fact I was saved from drowning in the deeper, turbulent water of Ramble Creek, after I suddenly crashed through the thin ice in late spring. Maybe it was the still-vivid memories of life and death episodes, the result of other crisis situations, in the past sixty years, that has made me think often about all the cumbersome truths regarding the mortal dance with fate; and how we think about it in casual contemplation after a near miss. I look at Bet's characterization of my family, and it honestly gives me a sudden chill, because the illustration clearly depicts survivors of fate; not those who succumbed.
If I had drowned on that near fateful day, in the tumbling spring run-off powering the flow of Ramble Creek, there wouldn't have been any family for Bet Smith to profile. If you recall the theme from Frank Capra's story, "It's A Wonderful Life," which so hauntingly depicts the relevance, in a community like Bedford Falls, for example, of even one life not-lived, or fulfilled, that "should have been," what a tragic vacuum of influence it would create. Not that it would ever be recognized, because, that subject life never actually existed, did it?
Well then, if fate had prevailed in the most negative of negative senses, meaning my actual drowning that day, the Currie family would never have existed. The premise I still reflect upon, occasionally, of never having existed, the matter imposed upon the subject character, George Bailey, (It's A Wonderful Life), to look upon the absent-from-living outcome, if that had been a reality. It enabled him, George, to appreciate the true worth of one life upon others, and the influences within the broader community not fully understood. "I wish I had never been born." Guardian Angels don't like that kind of talk. I can't help reminiscing about that near fateful day, and how I came within minutes of sliding below the ice, consumed by a powerful current presumably to my expected death. It is of course a well written, neat and tidy story, this tale of George Bailey, that made for a great and memorable Hollywood movie. Gosh, my fateful encounter wasn't fiction. But I have always believed, as with George Bailey's Guardian Angel, Clarence, that my rescue was of a parallel divine intervention. My rescue not simply explained. The super human strength of my small mother, to pull me free of waist high water. And me being weighed down by gallons of ice water in my boots and snow suit. I had a Guardian Angel but it definitely wasn't Clarence.
I suppose in many ways, it has been a preoccupation with me for decades, without really knowing it was firmly lodged in the back of my mind. I didn't know what death was, but I had a really clear understanding how close I was to losing my grip on the edge of the ice, and how my footing was giving way at the same time, as the current eroded the creek bottom from the back of my boots, creating a depression in the sand that threatened my balance. I did know that if I was pulled under the ice, there was no way I could survive without an air space. I was just a kid but my Guardian Angel gave me a little preview of the trouble I was in, before, I believe, giving my mother the strength of Hercules, to then, on the brink of life and eternal slumber, pull me free of my exist from this world. It wasn't the first time I scuttled the grim reaper's plan, and it wasn't the first occasion I had experienced what I believe was a divine intervention. As I had survived a lengthy lung infection a year or so earlier, and had the first of several "angel dreams," I also managed to cheat death once more, thanks to circumstances and situations of my rescuers that I have never been made aware. My mother was working on adrenalin, and she put so much effort into the rescue that she lost the details of the rescue. Until her final days, she could never truly explained how she pulled me out of that frigid water. She didn't even want to talk about it, because it was so frightening at the time, and for many years after, when she also thought about life without little Teddy.
There are many times in reflection of my life spent, thus far, that I regret not having fulfilled all the big plans I made as a young fellow looking to conquer the world. But borrowing from Frank Capra's theme in his story, "It's A Wonderful Life," I did more fully appreciate what my death would have meant to this family Chronicle "The Curries," and like the premise of character "George Bailey," of Bedford Falls, never having been born, I can become staggered to silent contemplation, looking then at the stack of family photo albums, and this friendly-infused sketch, by Bet Smith, to then, in a panic, embrace the reality of "fate" as if it is all of a sudden my best friend. And I should never ever dismiss the reality that it is this cutting edge "fate" that my Guardian Angel, has, for these many years, tried to keep from cutting me out of the family portrait.
This portrait sketch of our family is an ongoing pleasant reminder to me, about the fragility of life, and the many times we neglect to give fate is due respect. I don't fear it as much as I revere its presence, and appreciate the complications it can cause to the chronicle of history. As a writer and antique dealer, or the other way around depending on the priorities of the moment, I can never really distance myself from the jagged edges of reality as I have known it for all these years. I have survived at least seven serious threats to my existence, and a few death threats as a journalist, and each one might have taken that final ugly turn, if not for some last minute intervention or unanticipated good fortune; such as the wrecked car with leaking gas tank not being engulfed by flames when we were trapped in the vehicle. Or that I revived just as I was depleted of oxygen, after being knocked-out by another swimmer, at Bracebridge's Kirby's Beach. I didn't, in the aftermath, think too much about the fact my demise might have been fateful to a yet to be achieved family, but I did come to understand how final death was, and just how close I had come to the end. I had several mates killed in a tunnel cave in back in the late 1960's, in Bracebridge, and I was supposed to be with them, except for the fact my mother refused to let me attend when she found out what had been planned in the side of a hill near Bass Rock in Bracebridge.
It has all merged together in this senior situation, where I can with some wisdom acquired, look back upon the decades and feel modestly successful at having achieved a wonderful life despite the close calls. My family is thus thriving, safe and sound, because I survived. Is it overly fantastic and emotionally simplistic of me, to think, or rather believe, it was all the intervening work of an over-burdened Guardian Angel, who, with divine registry, had to protect the living from premature demise? The "it wasn't my time yet," reply, when someone tries to explain why they cheated death on a particular occasion. It's just one of those things, isn't it, that depends entirely on interpretation of the survivor. And it has been a fixation for all of these years, that has entered virtually every enterprise I've involved myself, and yet, truthfully, it has never meant leading a spiritual life, or in any way, obsessing about a religion or a religious conviction. Yet when I am asked if I believe in Guardian Angels, with all the providential attributes that involves, I have no choice but to confess the strong belief, that fate could only have been altered for this wee lad, by something well beyond the ordinary; the extraordinary strength of a small rescuer, my mother, who never denied she had found strength during that rescue never to be repeated in life. I'm so glad that her fate and mine on that occasion coincided in space and time distancing, such that rescue was possibly in human terms. Divine intervention is just a fascination to me, and maybe wishful thinking, but benign in the grand scheme of every day life and living.
The Bet Smith portrait is important to our whole family, but it is of particular interest to me, because when all is said and done, it shows the true depth of the Capra them, and indeed, it has been a "Wonderful Life".
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