If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.
Thích Nhất Hạnh
ePub
A4PREFACE
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OOK ONEChildhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age.
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
I’d had more than my fair share of near-death experiences; it wasn’t something you ever really got used to.
It seemed oddly inevitable, though, facing death again. Like I really was marked for disaster. I’d escaped time and time again, but it kept coming back for me.
Still, this time was so different from the others.
You could run from someone you feared, you could try to fight someone you hated. All my reactions were geared toward those kinds of killers—the monsters, the enemies.
When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give your beloved, how could you not give it?
If it was someone you truly loved?
