Eight days before my seventh birthday, I was involved in a near death
experience that turned out to be a life-changing event. I am now thirteen
years old, and would like to share my story, so that others can learn the
important lesson that I learned that day. I had decided to go to Double
Play, a place where there are batting cages, and baseball fields, and other
such things. That night, my brothers were going to practice batting, so they
were going to be in the batting cages. I had nothing to do, so I planned to
watch them bat. When my dad informed me that my brother David was about to
be in the batting cage for his turn. I took a few steps, and I saw a flash
of silver aluminum in front of me, then everything went black. A very strong
older boy had illegally taken a full force practice swing from outside the
cages, and I suffered the consequences; he had hit me right in the face, and
knocked me unconscious, covered in blood. When I awoke, I was stunned to be
lying on the ground, and I could vaguely make out images of a large crowd of
people around me through all the blood. There was so much blood on my face
that it was hard to recognize me. The bat had completely demolished my nose,
and the shattered bones had come out through the top of my nose, about in
between my eyebrows.

It took countless stitches, a number of surgeons, and a lot of
reconstructive plastic surgery to fix my face after this, and I still hold
the memory on my face, with two scars, one from getting hit in the middle of
my nose, and one at the top from the bones coming out. At first, I thought
that I had to be the most unfortunate person on earth to have this happen to
me, but I soon discovered that this was not the case. The doctors soon
informed me that I was quite lucky. The bones that had emerged at the top of
my nose had come one-fourth of an inch from being shoved into my brain,
instantly killing me. The bat only had to hit me one quarter of an inch
higher.

I learned that day that life is a very fragile thing. Coming so very
close to death has brought me much closer to understanding life and death.
Because of this understanding, I do not take life for granted, as many people
do. Instead, I live life to the fullest extent. For this, I am not
unfortunate; I am the luckiest person of all. Many people do not learn not
to take life for granted until it is too late, but I learned at quite a young
age. My outlook on life was completely changed in an instant that I will
never forget.