the accident

Oh my god. I just found out my good friend was in a terrible car accident in November. Pedestrian versus car, she was the pedestrian. A pedestrian because she was being a good Samaritan and trying to help a woman in a car who was having a seizure. She saw a car bouncing off the guardrail as they both sped up Route 95. Finally the bouncing car came to stop and she could see the woman in the driver’s seat having a seizure. She stopped her car on the other side of the road and other cars helped her stop traffic and get across. As she and her son approached the car that had come to a halt it started moving again – a Mercedes SUV – barreling toward them. “Run!” And she tried to jump the guardrail, but it was too high. As she tried to lift her leg over it, the car made contact and her son, running ahead of her, turned just in time to see her being cartwheeled over the rail. He was hit next – the car actually ran over him, but the big chassis straddled him (thanks be to Allah) and he wound up with a broken leg. She’s been out of work with TBI since then. Holy shit.

It happened in November, I’m just finding out now. As she spoke I kept saying “my mouth is hanging open.” I feel so unmoored finding this out. Let me speak selfishly for a paragraph or two.

She’s been a friend for 38 years – a long time. Learning of this horrible accident makes me so aware, once again, of our mortality. And it makes me feel so personally lucky that I am alive and well – after all the things I have also survived. And the things my other friends, so many of them, have not survived. Her life is changed forever. And I am still fine. How does this happen? How is it that I keep surviving?

And why, after I found this out, was my first reaction to try and finish up everything I had to do before settling in to process the horror? I was trying to make myself grade a few papers before blogging about it. Finally I put the papers aside, and here I am telling you. But my first instinct was to put everything in order and then set aside some time to feel.

OK. Done being selfish (at least for the moment). Our lives change in a moment, an instant. While we’re walking dully along, or watching our children play, or trying to help. And suddenly and forever everything is different. Could be better. Often it’s worse. And even if the alteration is itself minor, miniscule, too small to be seen with the naked eye, the impact can be unfathomable. We are entirely changed. And then…who are we? We are in unfamiliar skin. The mind has familiar memories, but the window to the present is suddenly fogged. How to carry on? It’s the finale of the Carmina Burana, or a whisper. The question rolls silently through the open door and into the center of the floor. How to carry on?