Dear Gaia:

I thought you were Italian because you wrote “problema” once, Italian for problem, and because your screen name is Italian, or Greek, as far as I know.

I am feeling better, thank you. It hurts less but also I am less afraid of this pain, feeling less fear when feeling the pain. It is dangerous to fall, and I fell a less than a meter straight down on my  back. You can imagine the descent of Kobe’s helicopter  a hundred times more that descent, when the body falls on a hard surface it breaks, just a bit (in my case, only two weeks pain so far) or instant death in the case of Kobe’s case, his 13 year old daughter, and seven other people (who although  not famous, are not any less worthy than Kobe,  his daughter, and no less valuable than your uncle whose heart just stopped).

Isn’t it amazing how wealth and fame do nothing to make falling less deadly? How wealth and fame don’t protect a person from injury, illness and death?

Not only that, if Kobe was not rich, he wouldn’t be able to own that fancy helicopter and he would be driving instead of flying (no descent involved in driving) to his daughter’s ball game and both would be alive. And isn’t it interesting that the seven people in the helicopter with him thought they were lucky to be riding with this famous person in his helicopter, but ended instead dead?

Yes, we are alive today and may be dead tomorrow, just like you wrote. It makes me less afraid to really understand this. Let this reality encourage you to live with less fear.

anita