Well, I Nearly Died Again

I'm OK.

Of the many areas of my expertise, my least favorite is how many times I’ve tasted imminent death. After a terrible car accident yesterday (I am very sore but fine), I’m up to four.

The first time I thought I would die, I was nine, and it was my first night of sirens in Riyadh during the Gulf War. I almost don’t want to include it, because with all the context I have now, I understand how safe we were. But as a nine year old, I mentally rifled through my hopes and dreams, certain they were about to be snuffed out. My mother—an old hand at sirens—laughed, and brought me into her bed, where I stared at the air conditioning unit we had just sealed up, in case of a mustard gas attack.

The second time was a rainy night when I came around a bend on the 101 in Hollywood, and hit a stalled car. As I watched the car behind me skid up in the rear-view, I thought that was it. My life was going to end, in my Civic, in a city I didn’t like very much (yet). But as that car made impact, my trunk crumpled, and I did not. Four more cars behind us skidded, one after the next, and I braced myself each time, feeling the impact less and less.

The third was five days after the birth of my second baby, when a small headache in the morning had turned into the worst pain I had ever felt—and I had birthed two children, so I knew pain. It felt like my brain was trying to hammer its way out of my skull. We rushed to the ER, where they hooked me up to a morphine drip, then fentanyl, which both did nothing. The hammering had me screaming on a gurney while I mentally prepared never to see my new baby, four year old, or family ever again. They got ahold of my OB, who figured out I was dealing with postpartum preeclampsia, a sudden spike in blood pressure that, unchecked, lead to seizures of strokes. You’re lucky you came in when you did, said the ER doctor, after they replaced the pain meds with blood pressure meds and the pain began to subside. You could have had an aneurysm.

And then, yesterday. We started the day with a Halloween parade at our kids’ school. As I finessed our six year old’s witch costume, 20 minutes before we were due at the parade, she grumbled a little. Was I not going to be a cat? I sighed. Was Dad not going to be a pig? We don’t have time for that, I’m sorry, I said. We need to get you to school. Disappointed, but in the way kids are always disappointed by a world that’s not as fun as them, she climbed into my car.

After the parade—where I had to shake off some guilt about wearing jeans and sneakers and my goofy Michigan cap—I ran some household errands and made plans to meet my best friend for lunch. I was driving through an intersection downtown when my right eye caught a flash of an SUV barreling at me at a high speed, trailed by two police cars, sirens blaring. This can’t be happening, I thought. I cannot die in a police chase. The car rammed my passenger side, blowing up the air bags, and causing me to spin through an intersection. As the car spun, glass flying everywhere, I braced myself for a second impact, thinking OK, turns out I die in a police chase. A fortunate act of physics smashed the car's rear end into a lamppost, and it finally stopped moving.

My therapist friend Annie tells clients to manage intrusive thoughts about scary experiences by thinking about the moment they knew they were safe. Yesterday, when I hit that pole, and the car stopped moving, I did a body scan—everything seemed to hurt, but I could move my limbs. I knew I was safe, but I couldn’t believe it. A woman nearby opened the door and helped me out as I burst into hysterical tears. The first person I saw behind her was an older Asian man in a Michigan sweatshirt. I would have laughed, in any other circumstance. I’m alive I’m alive I’m alive, I said. I’m alive. I’m OK. The woman helping me said “God loves you,” walked me over to a folding chair, and handed me a Fresca from her taco cart.

When I stopped crying and shaking, I called my husband and texted Jenny, and they both made their way to me. Strangers walked up to me to stare at my car and wonder at the miracle of life. A number of these strangers offered me hugs, and I accepted them, tearing up each time. A camera lady for the news showed up, with worry in her soft green eyes, and whispered that I should get numbers from witnesses, and tape the segment in case I needed it for insurance. I learned that the other driver had robbed a store, and had taken off on foot after the crash, but was in custody. I got checked out by a band of firefighters in their mid-20s. They looked like hipster bartenders in protective gear, and I tried not to giggle at their ironic mustaches as they told me I was going to be OK. The police… I know I’m not supposed to befriend any police, but one of them was from (of course) Michigan, and told me she wants to retire in Costa Rica. I hope she gets to.

I called insurance, and AAA, and a body shop, and a rental car company. My husband kept trying to take my phone and do it himself, but I told him I needed things to keep me busy. He went to get me food, because I never made it to that lunch. I asked him to drive me straight to the car rental place, and he couldn’t believe I was ready to get in another car. I don’t think I’ll get caught in another police chase today, I told him. I’m not sure what the universe is trying to tell me yet, or why I have the specific fortune of knowing the rhythm of this kind of thing so well.

There was a lot of religious chatter around me yesterday and I’m moved and touched by all of it, but I also know I’ve never seen a light, or heard a voice, I’ve just felt with absolute certainty that the lights were about to be turned off, and my time would be done. As I process the accident, which I know will take a while and come out in strange ways, I already know what the lesson is, because it’s the same every time: to live as richly and purposefully as I can. In a life this fragile, I’ve learned, I can’t waste time on self-pity or fear. There’s only pursuing my technicolor daydreams and squeezing everyone close.

The new development, this time, has been an incredible outpouring of love I felt over the course of four pretty weird hours at the intersection of Alvarado and James M. Wood. Love for my husband who brought me hugs and tacos, love for my best friend Jenny who helped me clean out my wrecked car while I talked to the police, but sensibly put on my sun hat first—she has a delicate complexion. But also love for the 30something man in his pajamas and a soft green hoodie who called me “baby” and hugged me while I cried, and every other person I met yesterday, even the guy at the car rental place who had somehow also gotten T-boned at another intersection, and was eyeing my tacos, so I gave him one. A love for everyone, never-ending. A love loop.

When we finally got home, I showered and pulled on all black. With eyeliner, I colored the tip of my nose, and drew whiskers on my cheeks. I grabbed a sequined cat-eared headband from my daughter’s stash, and went downstairs, achy, to surprise her for trick-or-treating. She was so happy.

xo