I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death

by Maggie O'Farrell

That the things in life which don’t go to plan are usually more important, more formative, in the long run, than the things that do.

You need to expect the unexpected, to embrace it. The best way, I am about to discover, is not always the easy way.

I consider myself steeped in luck, in good fortune to have avoided the fate the doctors decreed for me. I have been showered with shamrocks, my pockets filled with rabbits’ feet, found the crock of gold at the end of every rainbow. I could not have asked for more from life, to have been spared what might have been.