In February of 1993, I was alone in a single-car accident. On an old, winding, desert road in southeast Arizona, my 1965 Ford Falcon lost traction, fishtailed, and rolled two-and-a-half times. Cars rolling over make a terrible sound, and that sound is even worse when you’re inside the car as it tumbles. When the roll-over ended, silence flooded into the upside-down car. It was as though a silent panic had begun to creep over me. I managed my way out of the car, eventually flagged down for help a kind stranger who was driving by, located a police officer, and called my parents from the police station. When the officer took me back out to the accident site, a big police SUV with flood lights had shown up to illuminate the light-less accident scene. My car, crushed, upside down and on the side of the road, looked more like a beast or ancient animal had died…on its back with its feet in the air. The scene was disorienting and it had an alternate-reality feel to it. It felt like everything was happening underwater. A not-so-nice officer questioned me as to how fast I was going, and didn’t believe me at first when I told him I wasn’t speeding. After taking measurements of the skid marks with which my tires scarred the road, it was determined that I was driving between 35-40 mph. I remember thinking that if that kind of speed created these kinds of results, what would have happened if I actually HAD been speeding. The cop returned, peered down at me over his clipboard, and simply stated, “Son, you should be dead right now.” I was 16 years old.
I learned that night that when you die, there’s usually no drum roll, no fanfare, no warning. The facade of invincibility fell away and the illusion of safety all but vanished. That night changed how I thought about life, how I thought about MY life, and how important it was to me to spend whatever time or opportunity I had savouring and appreciating all that I could, and try not to spend too much time wandering aimlessly through life on auto-pilot. I learned that one is never too young to start living life on purpose, and that while we are all entitled to make our share of mistakes, that doesn’t mean that we’re absolved from their consequences. And in the months and years that followed, I also learned that not everyone feels the same way.
Seventeen-and-a-half years later, I remain ever grateful for the terrifying experience of that accident.
I am grateful that neither I nor anyone else was injured that night.
I am grateful for the kindness of strangers.
I am grateful for the cop who scared the everloving bejeezus out of me.
I am grateful that a lack of seat belts in that car didn’t matter as much that night because cars in the 1960s were still made of steel.
I am grateful for steel.
And above all, I’m grateful for the understanding that although it can all end at any moment, and we have much less control over this than we think, it doesn’t DECREASE our responsibility for our lives or how we treat each other, but does quite the opposite. It is precisely BECAUSE our time is unpredictably limited and therefore precious that it is incumbent upon each of us to extract every last drop of beauty and wisdom and excellence from whatever time we’ve got, and in those acts pay tribute to the convenant we keep with those who come after us, and those who came before.
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