The truth in life is that we probably have countless brushes with death every day that we never know about. Just crossing a busy city street or shuttling the kids to school, one careless driver more or less at exactly the right moment and your number could be up.
There’s nothing, however, like a violently turbulent flight to make you think maybe, finally, despite the overwhelming odds against crashing, this is really it.
Today I had that flight.
It was a routine Delta jaunt from West Palm Beach Florida (my home airport) to New York City for one of the seminars I teach there several times a year; routine for Delta, routine for me. I hadn’t clued in much to the weather other than to know it would be rainy in New York and to select the most appropriate coat to bring.
About half way through the two-and-a-half hour flight, we hit
