Have you ever taken someone or something for granted? No one is ever prepared for a tragedy to happen to them. Not very often do people have the chance to recover from life threatening situations. Luckily, my grandpa beat the odds. Most people are familiar with the expression, “cats have nine lives.” That expression is true to my grandpa. In fact, he is on his tenth life. Despite all of his near death experiences, my grandpa has kept a great outlook on life. He has made a tremendous impact in my life, teaching me to stay positive and make the most of everything.
Starting at age two, my grandpa contracted whooping cough. It was so serious that his parents thought he had died. He survived, but it wasn’t until he was four before he started walking…show more content… Just as he was doing so, he backed up against a cross cut saw as lightning struck it. He was thrown 10 feet, turned blue, and his eyes rolled back in his head. His mom came running outside, devastated by what had happened, and shook him a few times. She said it took him a little while to come back around. Several years passed before another unfortunate event happened. Around the age of 28, while attending college in Bolivar, on July 4th, he tried to remove a kite from a power line and was electrocuted. It went in through his left hand, bypassed his heart, and blew a hole out of his right inner thigh. The doctors said he’d have to have a skin graft, and that he would be laid up for six months and even then would be in a wheelchair for a period of time. He spent thirty days in the hospital, and his leg miraculously healed on its own. A few years later, while my grandpa was working in the chicken house, a conveyor line fell and hit him on the head. It left a big, gruesome gash and knocked him out. He woke up to chickens pecking at his face and said to himself, “Well I reckon I better get up before they peck my eyeballs out!” He always looked at the humorous side of life.