Car accidents remind me of how fragile life is.
Driving downtown makes me nervous, a labyrinth of one-way streets and construction to navigate and oblivious pedestrians to dodge. Sure enough, Google Maps instructed me to turn down a road that was blocked, and I cursed its rerouting delay causing me to miss the next street. A dented FedEx van parked perpendicular in the road created another detour, its hazards flashing and bike-mounted cops on scene.
With growing anxiety, I asked my passenger to help me find parking. I needed a second pair of eyes to watch for the golden spot while I maneuvered the downtown maze. “There!” he pointed, and I yanked the steering wheel to cross 2 lanes before I passed it. Thankfully, there were no cars near me to vie for the road.
Before I could breathe a sigh of relief, I was startled to hear honking. A bus at the intersection was trying to make a wide right turn from the middle lane. Like watching an accident happen in slow motion, the bus nearly squished the car driving straight in the right lane and nearly rammed the two cars cutting in front from the left lane. But the accident didn’t happen as all three cars made it through like sliding into an elevator before the door finished closing.
In a moment of déjà vu, my son’s body slumped, releasing built up tension. Driving home from work earlier that afternoon, a truck had pulled out of a parking lot just as he was passing. He honked and swerved to the far lane, but the truck struck the passenger side. His car had not been as lucky as those outrunning the bus, but I was relieved he was not injured.
Every day I send my children out into the world, having faith that they will return unscathed. I wonder how I am so calm about this, going about day to day, when anything might befall them. Or it could be me taken from them, leaving them without a parent.
My son turned 18 the week his car was hit. I said “welcome to adulthood,” just like I did when my daughter had turned 18 and had a fender bender a month after she bought her new car. Although my kids are now adults, it doesn’t make them any less vulnerable to the fragility of life. Their dad died at 47; we are not strangers to death.
Walking to our destination, we stopped at a crosswalk and watched a car reverse in front of us, having turned onto a one-way street. He backed out and proceeded to go the wrong way down the other street. The oncoming car stopped as the mixed up driver made a three point turn and sped away finally in the right direction. I couldn’t say I blamed the confused driver, as I too worry I might drive the wrong way down a one-way. I felt secondhand humiliation and was grateful no on-lookers laughed.
My daughter was spooked the previous day, witnessing a driver from the farthest left lane zoom over to an exit he barely missed. Crossing four lanes, he almost caused an accident and then almost collided with the barrier. How was she still alive when these near misses happened all the time? How did she get so lucky as to only experience a fender bender a block from home?
Arriving at our ghost tour that night, I was sober after so many hits and near misses all around me. It seemed wrong to be entertained by a voyeuristic excursion of death. The idea of a docent leading us through sites where prior residents suffered gruesome fatalities felt disrespectful. I shrugged off the icky feeling, remembering that near misses were still misses. All we can do is stay in our lane and keep our head.
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