I am a survivor.601Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF2HfFP5zkR
I have survived everything life can throw. At the very edges of living, when I can feel my life slipping away like string through these aged fingers, I can call myself a survivor.601Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQPEJ611qmN
I am standing on the brink, where the lines between life and death are blurred. I can feel Death, with his cold hands and breath like ice coming up behind me. I know that soon, soon, he will place his hand on my shoulder and ask me to join him. I will bid you all adieu, but do not weep. For I am a survivor.601Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCwoV9hzRHI
601Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcowjcQrnnN
It will be my old age that will be my demise. It shall not be the world war, neither one nor two, for I lived through both. I survived the bombings and the rationing as a child, I survived the trenches as an adult. I received a shot to my thigh, but I survived that, too.601Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQPGAwp30YM
I returned from the war, back to my home. The rolling hills of Wales rose to meet me as I landed at last on home soil. I shall savour that moment forever. I survived the journey home from the war; many did not. I survived the war guilt that lead so many of my comrades to insanity and even death. I am a survivor.601Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsMBmAfKaoB
601Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOnhnxQJiCW
I survived the mines. I went back to work, following my father’s profession and his father's before him. I descended that ladder every day bar Sunday for thirty years. My lungs grew irritable, my breathing became unsteady and I aways had a most persistent cough. They called it Industrial Dust Disease, or Black Lung. And still I survived. I survived all of the illnesses the mine could toss my way. I survived a collapse when the walls of the mine came crumbling inwards. Only three of us made it out alive, and I was one.
I have survived grief. More times than I care to count. The death of my friends and brothers during the horrors of war, when I was too young really to understand death or grief. The death of my wife during childbirth bearing twins I survived too. And even further grief when one of those twins was claimed by the Reaper too. I believed I would die too. I could not see an end to my grief or my suffering. But I chose to survive. To survive for my child, the child which my wife had given her own life and blood for. I have survived more grief than I ever thought possible.601Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡulh26jeakS
601Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrqmWktxres
So you see, whilst I lie here on my deathbed at the ripe old age of eighty-three, I do not see myself as a victim. I am a survivor. I have survived life. Now I welcome death with open arms, for I have evaded him all of my long life. I shall not feel fear when he comes for me at last, for I have seen him many times coming for my friends and relatives. We are almost old friends, death and I. Like two people who are always at the same parties but have never spoken. Perhaps it is time we meet, not as conquerer and conquered, but as old, old friends.601Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAXRADEGrI6
