Hard Bargain: What Life-Altering Experiences Taught Me About Faith, Friendship, and Family

I thought about my wife and four children, and was filled with a fear I'd never see them again....

For Donald Denihan, it was supposed to be the fishing trip of a lifetime. Instead, it ended up nearly costing him his life in a hard bargain he made with the sea.

Near death experiences were nothing new to this successful real estate entrepreneur, though. At the age of sixteen, a hunting accident had nearly cost him his foot. A lengthy hospital stay, followed by an equally lengthy rehabilitation, filled Donald with resilience and made him think he could overcome anything.

That is, until he was struck by the same aggressive form of prostate cancer at the age of only thirty-five that had killed his father. Once again, Donald prevailed and even overcame the side effects of surgery which he celebrated by learning how to fly fish.

A decade later that new avocation brought him to the Bahamas with his closest friends and college student son, specifically to waters rich with the schools of bonefish fly fishermen long for. Then one ill-fated boat trip confronted him with his own mortality yet again, when a violent storm capsized his ill-prepared boat and left him clinging to life.

Through a long night of pounding rain and storm-swept winds, Donald faced off against everything the sea could throw at him. With the odds of survival dimming by the moment, his own desperate efforts at sea are mirrored on land by the resourcefulness of friends and family who will stop at nothing to save him before it's too late.

But even that might not be enough, because some bargains are better off never made.