There are (at least) three ways to react to a near-death experience.

It may be a car accident, in which you almost got killed. (Maybe -- I hope not -- a passenger in your car was killed.) It may be, an extreme example, you working in a bank when a masked guy came in and opened fire. It may be when you were in any public place, strolling the mall or in a particular store, when such an unlikely thing happened. At worst, your kids were at school, and somebody started shooting at them.

If you, or anyone you know, or your kids, survived something like that, you have some serious thinking to do. What did it mean? How does it change my life? My kids' lives?

I think there are three ways we can react to senseless violence inflicted on us or our loved ones.

First, we can tell ourselves that it was just random, that the driver of the car that struck us was distracted or drunk or blinded by a setting sun, or the shooter at the mall or the school was crazy and that we or our kids were just, by happenstance, in the way. Nothing we could have done to prevent it.

Second, we can say that it's God's will, that He has a plan for us, and in this particular instance, it involved having our car rammed by a careless driver or being nearly murdered or having our kids nearly gunned down by a maniac. Good luck selling that to traumatized relatives and friends.

Third, we can say that we don't know why it happened and see what we can learn from it. (See below.)

I've had two near-death experiences.

One was when I was twenty-one, in Viet Nam, when a Viet Cong sniper put a bullet through my helmet, not an inch above my head. (I still have the helmet.) With a little better aim, I wouldn't be writing this. A second was just recently, when a car turned in front of me when I was riding a bike and almost sent me into oblivion.

But it might also be a cancer diagnosis that sends us into panic but later turns out okay, or a freak fall into the water on a canoe trip when we don't have a life-jacket and start swallowing water but are rescued or find our way to shore. Near-death can happen at any time, without warning. But once we've survived it, shaken but alive, it's time to think about what it meant.

Okay, this happened, and it was scary, but I'm still here (and so are my kids). So now what?

In the end, you're left alone with your thoughts about it. You can tell -- and re-tell -- it to friends and family, who will sympathize but will eventually get tired of hearing about it. After all, you're still alive, right? Move on, they think but might not say.

How do you move on? You have to process the event because it happened to you. You can't pretend it didn't. If you do, it will likely crop up somewhere down the line when you least expect it. Deal with it now.

You can be paralyzed to the point that you are incapable of, say, driving a car again or riding your bike. Or letting your kids go to school. That will guarantee that it won't happen again but will also limit your movement and your kids' chances of becoming anybody.

Or (see above) you can realize that such awful things don't often happen twice to a person and that you've survived yours.

Congratulations!

I'm willing to bet that statistics show that an individual is very unlikely to get into two near-fatal car crashes in a lifetime. Or be nearly run over by a car when on a bike twice. (After all, it's only happened to me once in more than forty years of riding.) You, having come through what could have been the end of your life, have surfaced on the other side, still intact!

Be thankful! Whew!

I think that you should consider your brush with death a blessing: it probably innoculated you against similar traumas in the future. Consider yourself chosen, golden, destined for glory.

Or at least a longer life.

Hey, we only get one good near-death story per person. Any more would bore our guests.

Consider yourself lucky, and don't ask questions. Go forth and live another day!