backward and he couldn’t hang on, and dropped her on her head, onto a hard concrete floor. She clearly had a concussion and went into shock, turning a grayish color. We wrapped her up and rushed her to the hospital in Mexico City, where we lived at the time. My wife was bawling and my son was terrified, feeling responsible and guilty for what had happened. Fortunately everything turned out OK, but it was pretty scary for a while.

Second: I was on a flight from Lima to Cuzco, Peru on a windy day. 20 or 30 minutes into the flight, the plane started to turn and the pilot announced that we had to turn around and return to Lima because one of the exterior doors hadn’t closed properly and it was too dangerous to continue flying, and the cabin was depressurizing. Everyone panicked and the plane was lurching up and down in strong gusts of wind and I thought we were all going to die.

Third: my very active and curious son was about 3 1/2 years old when we went to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. At one point when we were walking along a trail near the rim, my son broke away and ran off because he saw a small metal fence or protective barrier that to him looked like a jungle gym. Before we could get to him, he started climbing on it and twirling on the low metal bars. I sprinted as fast as I could to grab him. The barrier was a foot or two away from a precipice that was at least 1,000 ft straight down, if not more. For a couple of seconds I thought he was a goner, doing toddler acrobatics over the edge of the cliff. I physically held him in my arms the rest of the hike.