On Near Death and a Real Life in Two Parts
Part One (on compassion, and the glory of the small)
My body seized as I drove through the intersection, noticing bits of headlights and a lone windshield wiper poking through the snow. I slowed the loaner car, and my breath, as I tried to reel my thoughts in. There, in the snow, was what was left of my Jeep. Here, behind the wheel of tired rental, was me. With more chances, more time, possibility still unfolding.
Days before, I had barely cleared the Snow King Avenue intersection, when I noticed a car speeding from the opposite direction. In seconds I registered: fast, too fast headlights in my eyes wrong lane wrong lane stop no please…
Impact. Noise so loud all goes quiet. Spinning, spinning, spinning. Slow stop. Acrid smoke. But I’m ok. I’m still here, part of the snow, the night, the breath that keeps me alive, will or will not stay with the driver in the other car.
“Are you OK? Are you OK? I’m OK,” I call to the Suburban. I am fascinated by my pumping heart, my legs that step over the debris, my aliveness. I can see. I see stars and night sky. I can feel the ground beneath myself, so amazing, so constant. I so want to hear something from the silent car.
A man in a shearling leather coat finally spills out of the drivers’ side, complete shock on his face. “I’m OK, we’re OK. I’m so sorry, are you really OK?” he asks. I can tell despite the not-quite-right look in his eyes that his care is sincere. There is agony here in his face, maybe regret, or relief.
My son arrives to pick me up as I am retrieving contents from what I joke is my “purse on wheels.” Gym shoes, dog bed, sunscreen, chapstick, pens, layers for skiing, walking, console contents. Sons’ kindergarten pictures, Mayor Sara Flitner badge, pens, old drivers’ license, birthday cards. He is shaken. Police lights flash, the two mangled vehicles frozen at awkward angles, doors agape and reflecting flashing blue and red, front ends annihilated. Fear and the wrongness of the scene empty into the street, driving home the facts. The fear is contagious. My son seems to catch it. “You could have killed my mom,” he says, not quietly.
He’s brought the dogs to the scene, probably because this is one of our annoying family habits, arriving with dogs. They do let me touch normalcy as they bound into the street, like smoking engines and debris-littered streets are just interesting, worthy of checking out. The patrol officer, kindness in his face, has my story and my insurance card. He asks me to collect my things, my son, my dogs, and go home. We do. Silas can’t settle down, raging against the drunk driver. I just keep thinking to myself, “I can hear your voice, darling. I can see these lights. I can talk to you, and tomorrow, your brother, and my sister.” I am dazed by all the small things I can do, that make up my ordinary life. I can taste how much I want to keep it, to stay here. I know someone else is answering the door to face a different ending to the story, a permanent one. This feels uneasy.
The tears threaten with hot pressure as we make our way down Snow King, but my son can’t see them because I am holding Hector’s giant dog bed in my lap and it shields me entirely from view like a makeshift airbag. I just have to sit here and feel. This, too, is uneasy.
The next day, Silas goes to Ron’s Towing to retrieve our garage door opener from the totaled car. As serendipity or fate would have it, the driver of the other car, just released from jail, has also come to retrieve belongings. “Oh, both of your cars came in last night,” says the chatty receptionist. “Were you in the same wreck?”
“Yea, he hit my mom. My mom could be dead right now,” he tells me was his reply.
“I’m so sorry,” says the broken man. “Last night was the worst night of my life.”
Then, as Silas tells me the rest, something cracked open.
He turned back and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. This man stood and my son opened his arms. They stood like this, Silas said, about twenty seconds.
Part Two (on self-compassion and the glory of the small)
When the shock and awe wears off, I’m moving into a range of emotions that are staccato, pointy, blunt. My body is sore, my stamina down, and my time is devoured by insurance calls, car sales departments, physical therapy and very timid and annoying driving, so says same son. I have lost nearly two weeks of work, so far, and I compensate by taking action, ploughing through my to-do list like it’s a safety guarantee. I add a trip across the state for my mother’s birthday, and by midweek, I’m back in bed with some virus. My body just says, “Stop.” “That’s funny,” observed my friend when I called her. “That’s maybe what your car said in a more dramatic way.”
I slow it all down to what I can feel and what I can notice. I notice that I don’t want to feel so much, so I slow it down more. I notice that feeling is helping me more than doing so I stop taking calls from the insurance agent. I give myself permission to feel bruised or spent or impatient, and I give permission to life to just be as it is, as if I have a say (also, my permission is begrudging). I let myself dwell in the feeling parts of what I will never, ever understand. That it is possible to live so small, spinning in one single car on one single road, out of all of the billions of cars and roads. And in the face of the small, to realize how big small is.
Tomorrow, I will be at the post office, talking to the people in line. I will call my sister. I will turn the lights on and notice fresh snow. I will have the big things.
