When I was 6, I fell out of a tree. Plummeting towards the ground, I shut my eyes tight and curled up into a ball, bracing for impact. It felt like I was falling for an eternity, and just before my body hit the ground, I had a strange feeling shoot through me: a sort of tingly sensation and a ringing in my ears. Suddenly, I was back up in the tree, peering down at the green grass below. The tingling was starting to send my body into a state of intense pain, like I couldn't move. Looking down at my hands, I assumed that I had just died, that my ghost or soul or something was floating up, trying to escape the body I had left behind, but there was no body. There was nothing except for the pebbles which once had inhabited my pockets. I climbed down, keeping a tight grasp on the branches as I descended. As soon as I made contact with the ground, I fainted.
My mom was the one who found me. She shook me awake, whispering prayers to God that I wasn't dead. My eyes fluttered open, the harsh sun emitting a glow from behind my mom. She looked like an angel.
"Andrew?" she asked, panic intense in her voice. "Oh, Andrew, are you alright? What happened?"
I rubbed my eyes, starting to sit up. "I fell out of the tree," I explained, pointing at the tall willow beside me. Horrified, my mom looked up to where my finger was pointed, the highest branch.
"You fell out of the tree?!"
"Mhm," I nodded, smiling. Mom pulled me close to her, hugging me tightly and rubbing my back.
"Thank the Lord you didn't break anything," a sort of confusion lingered in her voice. There was no way a 6 year old kid would've been able to fall out of a tree that high and survive, so she took it as a sign that God was looking out for her son.
