I’ve just been listening to a murder book where the victims are all people who have had a second chance at life. They all had events in their lives where they clinically died but were brought back to life by the actions of medical teams or timely CPR. The murderers felt that it was wrong to bring them back when they should have died and so decided to release them from this life and “send them home to Glory.”

This got me thinking about second chances. My best friend had a heart attack when she was forty-two and died. Like the characters in the book, she was brought back. And she now celebrates two birthdays.

I’ve not had anything as dramatic as that happen to me, but there have been lots of second chances. The biggest one, of course, is my second marriage. My first husband and I were just not very good at being married and he was wise enough to call it quits after ten years. At the time, I was devastated, but I’ve come to see what a good thing it was. If we hadn’t ended our marriage, I would never have met and married my lovely second husband and would never have had my wonderful girls.

There’s a second chance there too, as we lost our first baby in the first trimester. It’s very common, we found out later, but at the time we didn’t know and grieved more than we might have done if we had been at least half prepared for it. It took a long time to get pregnant again, and then, once we had decided to go for a second child, even longer. I had resigned myself to just having just the one – especially as I was already in my forties – when I found myself pregnant again.

Going back, I had a second chance, twice, with my accountancy exams. I will be honest and say that I didn’t really work at them as hard as I should have done, so maybe I didn’t deserve those chances, but at least I passed them on the second go. 

How many second chances do we get, and how many do we deserve? I know my friends – the ones who’ve stuck by me all through the bi-polar ups and downs - have given me second, third, fourth and fifth chances after my selfish and unpleasant behaviour while in mania. The ones who have dropped by the wayside, were not so patient.

Second chances depend sometimes on luck and sometimes on tolerance and forgiveness (although forgiveness does not necessarily mean allowing someone the opportunity to hurt you again). Unlike my friend, most of us don’t get a second chance at life if we die, but all of us get second chances in life itself.

Where have you experienced a second chance, and have you made the most of it? 

Mary

A Moodscope member