Jessica Ghawi

It's been two months now since I read in the paper about one of the victims of the shooting at the Dark Knight screening, Jessica Ghawi. She caught my attention because of what the article stated. Ironically, she had escaped open gunfire at the Eaton Mall only 20 days prior to the fateful day. The article mentioned a blog post she published after having survived the first shooting. I made a note to read it but never got round to doing it. But today, I did.

A Run On of Thoughts, the blog that she maintained, opens to her last post; The one speaking of her near-death experience. Reading that made me realize how much for granted we take each waking day of our lives. How lucky we all are to have been given another day. When we put something off for another day, what's saying we'd actually have that day? Life is so daily, but still, so unpredictable. Death is inevitable, unavoidable, but we never know when it's lurking around the corner. Should we never take steep turns then? Should we never skid off a cliff? Should we never unbuckle our seat belts? 
But more than thinking about when, where and how death awaits, I really feel for Jessica. When she saw through that first shooting, she was snatched away from the jaws of death in the nick of time. She must have felt like she was given a second life. She was barely given the time to assimilate what she had been through and change the way she wanted to. Her outlook changed, but did she really have the time to live that change? To begin to appreciate all those around her? 
How scary it must be to look at an injured person lying on a stretcher- bloody clothes, crying their heart out, staring death in the face - and thinking that could have been you. 
Oh so many ifs, buts and phews!