I’m Alive!!! Now What??? By Sarah Raplee McDermed

 

Eight months ago a near-death experience plowed through my Baby Boomer delusions of immortality (Don’t worry, Seventy is the new sixty! Eighty is the new seventy! Death is the new ninety!)

Being kept alive by advanced technology, a top-notch team of medical professionals and most of all, the Grace of God, does that to a person. To paraphrase a truth I read in the holy writings of the Baha’I Faith, ‘We are all but one step away from eternity.’

While waiting for life-saving open heart surgery in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic’s winter surge, I had a number of days to think about how our choices define us. I need to make some hard ones because my time on earth is limited.

Some choices are needed to support my mental, physical and spiritual health. Some are needed to nurture important relationships. Some are needed to revitalize my writing life.

Even before my brush with death, I was wrestling with how to go forward with my writing career. I got some wise guidance from Author, Writing Instructor and Publisher MaggieMcVey Lynch. I’ve written and Indie Pubbed a novel and had short stories included in two anthologies. I like writing short stories because they are fast and fun. I like writing novels because they are complex.

It’s become clear to me I don’t want to spend much time on promotion (which I hate). And making money is not the big goal for me (although it would be nice.) I do want to reach an audience and uplift them with my stories.

I choose to concentrate on writing short stories.

I plan to volunteer to write grant proposals and press releases for a charity of my choosing.

What’s next? When I feel overwhelmed by the choices I am facing, I say a little prayer and trust my intuition.

So far, so good…

 What do you do when faced with a difficult decision?

 

Diamond Hunter 99 cent Deal, April 13-19, 2015

by Madelle Morgan

Perilous, real life incidents in Canada's far north inspired events in Diamond Hunter, my romantic suspense available for $0.99 on Amazon.com and for £0.99 on Amazon.co.uk this week.

The RTG theme for April is hope. I had my share of nerve-wracking and downright terrifying moments as a passenger in bush planes when I was a junior project engineer based in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories in the early 1980s. However, a planeload of men I worked with endured hours of terror. Their tale illuminates how keeping one's cool and holding on to hope in a life or death situation is all that separates the brave from the... well, not so lucky.

I took notes thirty years ago when two middle-aged consulting engineers described their traumatic experience to me. Here's their story. 

The territorial department of Public Works had hired Montreal-based engineering consultants to design fuel storage facilities in the Arctic. One afternoon the two engineers and a construction contractor boarded a twin engine plane in Baker Lake to fly to Yellowknife, a distance of about 600 miles west as the goose flies. The Twin Otter was loaded with nine passengers and a lot of construction gear. The pilot had been flying since six a.m. and was tired when they took off.

There was no GPS satellite navigation back then. The magnetic north affects compasses. Pilots relied on visual identification of landmarks and radio, if and when in range. It's important to understand that there were no communities, no airports, no roads, not even a mine landing strip between Baker Lake and Yellowknife. 

The pilot and copilot flew over endless miles of tundra and water battling heavy crosswinds. At some point they lost their bearings and strayed from the flight path. They were lost.

People who've traveled extensively in small planes over long distances know very well how long a particular type of plane can fly before refueling. Four or five passengers realized one hour beforehand that the plane would run out of fuel before they reached Yellowknife. Darkness closed in.

Eventually an engine cut out and the plane's nose dropped. One consultant grabbed his partner's arm in a vice grip. Even those two city boys knew they were in terrible trouble.

The pilots took the plane up to 15,000 feet on a single engine. Twin Otter cabins are not pressurized. As the minutes ticked by, the plane steadily lost altitude. Ten miles out of Yellowknife the second engine sputtered and died. 

Yellowknife in the distance
Photo credit: Clayton Whitman

Yellowknife is built on granite and surrounded by water. There were no paved roads or streetlights beyond the town of 12,000. Everyone on the silent plane held their collective breath as the plane glided down in the pitch dark towards a terrain unforgiving to dead stick landings.

Then the pilots spied tiny lights on top of hydro towers and adjusted the heading to aim for them. The pilot had radio contact with the Yellowknife airport tower by this time, but he'd no hope of making it as far as the runway. Yet he kept his cool and didn't give up.

Orienting himself by the lights atop a string of towers, and by memory more than anything, the pilot prepared to land the plane without power. The copilot later admitted he didn't see the dirt road until two or three seconds before the wheels touched down.

Miraculously, the plane landed safely, although it ended up in a ditch. No one was hurt. Everyone jumped out and shook hands.

A pickup truck happened to come along and pulled up. A man got out and approached. "I usually have a case of beer for situations like this," he said.

The RCMP arrived. "I don't have a form for this situation," an officer admitted.

I have no idea what happened between the time the plane landed and the next day in my office. However, I strongly suspect the passengers headed straight for a bar and drank to that pilot's skills and courage.

Is her life worth a fortune in diamonds?

Geologist Petra Paris, on a mission to clear her father's name, disrupts a smuggling op at a Canadian diamond mine in the arctic. When escape by air is cut off, desperate smugglers escalate to murder. RCMP cop Seth Cooper, undercover as a bush plane pilot, needs to capture them before Petra becomes the next victim.

Seth sank onto the double bed, shock crowding disbelief. Why the hell couldn't the woman stay rescued?

Diamond Hunter is only $0.99 on Amazon the week of April 13-19. To be reminded of this and future Kindle deals, "Like" my Facebook page or subscribe to news and deals on my website.

NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE - MARGARET TANNER

NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE OR NOT? MARGARET TANNER

I have to be honest here and say that I have never had a near death experience nor has anyone that I know. Of course, I have read about it in the newspapers, heard it on TV etc.  I am not into re-incarnation, and can’t say I have ever met any re-incarnated person. Well, not that I know of.

I am a believer that when your number is up, your number is up. Well sort of.

The nearest I can come to this topic is to tell you the experience of my father. During the 2nd World War he escaped death several times. Who knows whether it was luck or perhaps he had a guardian angel.

 My father was serving in Malaya in 1941. He climbed up a really high tree as the look-out for his platoon. A Japanese plane suddenly appeared and dropped a bomb. The tree was hit and Dad fell to the ground. He should have died but didn’t. Instead he injured his spine and the doctors at the Casualty Clearing Station thought he must have broken his back, but he was evacuated to the military hospital in Singapore and rather than have a broken back it was discovered that bone had been chipped off his spine.

His next lucky escape came a few days before Singapore surrendered to the Japanese. The hospital was bombed, the roof was blown off and Dad was blown out of his bed and the soldier in the next bed was killed.

A couple of days before Singapore surrendered to the Japanese, Dad and a few other wounded escaped Singapore in a small boat. As they sailed out of the harbour a Japanese bomber flew down low, and they thought they were going to be blown out of the water, but the plane flew off and left them alone.

Then, they sailed around for about 3 weeks, not knowing where they were, but as luck would have it, a passing hospital ship picked them up and took them to Colombo, and they eventually made it home to Australia.

In my novel, Daring Masquerade, which is set during the 1^st World War, and is one of three novels, in a Special Edition to mark the centenary of this terrible conflict, the heroine Harry, has a dreadful nightmare. She sees her husband, Ross, lying in the mud on the French battlefields. At the same time, Ross who in fact has been seriously wounded, believes he is going to die, and there is no use fighting the inevitable. He feels himself go out of his body, then he hears Harry calling to him, telling him not to die and leave her all alone. She beseeches him to fight to survive. He realizes that if he dies out there in no-man’s land, his body might never be found and Harry would grieve and mourn him for years, even as she hoped that by some miracle he might survive. He can’t do this to her, so with a superhuman effort he gets to his knees and crawls back to his comrades.

THE LOVES WE LEFT BEHIND

Special Centenary Edition containing three novels depicting the tragedy and triumph of three different women during the 1^st world War.

 

 

A hundred years ago, from the far flung corners of the British Empire, young men rushed to fight for Mother England. They left their wives and sweethearts behind. Many of these brave women waited in vain for their men folk to return. How did they cope with the loss and heartache? Could they ever hope to find happiness with another man? Three full novels, each telling a brave young woman’s story of triumph over tragedy and adversity. Allison’s War, Daring Masquerade and Lauren’s Dilemma.
 Available in print and E-book format.

 http://amzn.com/B00MASTCHM

 http://www.margarettanner.com/

 

 

 

Seizing the Day When Death Comes Near

I have never personally had a near-death experience. Knock on wood. However, I have lost loved
ones and watched those I care for deeply draw close to death in one way or another. Recently, a family member received a potentially devastating medical diagnosis. While I hoped and prayed and agonized for a positive prognosis for him, I admit that I considered mortality in a way I hadn't just days before hearing of his condition.

Generally, like most of us, I suspect, I don't pass my days contemplating the end of my life, nor how many days of existence I might have left. I am usually too busy to even accomplish everything on my daily To Do list, let alone contemplate my mortality. But at certain moments in my life, death has drawn near. Near enough that its presence made me stop and pause. Stop and consider when my life might end. Stop and think about how I want to spend the rest of my days. 

"Live everyday as if it's your last" is a fine adage, but it's difficult to do each and everyday. Perhaps it's a financially necessary day job that prevents us from...climbing Mount Kilimanjaro—or whatever else our life's goals may be. And perhaps the aphorism does't simply mean we should quit a job that feels like drudgery and spend the rest of our days in Tuscany (though that sounds pretty good). Maybe it means we should view each day as precious, whatever we do with it. And, too, that we should pair down our lengthy life's To Do lists or bucket lists to the items that truly have significant, essential meaning to us. 

My family member is going to be just fine. After a quickly scheduled surgery by a talented surgeon, he's on the mend. In fact, he's already back at home with his family and enjoying life with as much verve and passion as he did before his diagnosis. And, according to him, a new portion of gratitude. For me, worrying about him and considering life and death, weighing my life up to this point and wondering how long my cord extends, made me realize there are a few things that matter to me a great deal, and a lot that, in the end, will matter very little. 

Family and friends are at the top of my list, but so too is my writing. After years of stops and starts, I finally got serious about my writing within the last two years. At the start of 2014, I published my first novella, Scandalous Wager. On November 1st, I will publish my third installment in my Whitechapel Wagers historical romance series. I am thrilled to finally be finishing my stories, publishing, and growing as a writer. Because when I consider what I want to accomplish in the rest of my days, writing is high on my list. Moments like the recent experience of hearing of a loved one's potentially serious medical diagnosis reminded me how precious everyday is, and how important it is to "seize the day."

Is writing on your list? Is there something you truly want to accomplish or pursue but have been putting it off for someday?