It was mid-September of my freshman year. It was the time of year when everyone has gotten into the groove of the semester: wake up, go to school, do the homework, go to bed, and repeat. This Thursday was like any other in many ways. I still remember how it began. I dressed and had a breakfast of blueberries and Cheerio’s. Then, I collected my backpack and climbed into the passenger seat of my brother Jonathan’s turquoise Escort. He was in the driver’s seat.
Jonathan and I began the daily commute to school. His window was rolled down as usual, and we listened to a new Iron and Wine album on his MP3 player, plugged into the tape deck. We chatted and laughed, enjoying each other’s company. I cherished these moments with my brother. He had become one of my best friends through these daily conversations on our way to and from school.
We slowed to a stop at the intersection of Highway 19 and Field Drive. As we pulled into the intersection to turn, a car came from the right out of the rarely-used exit of the park. Also, at the same moment, Jonathan turned to say or ask something, diverting his attention from the red car as it pulled out.
At the very instant the two cars were mere inches from each other’s hoods, my brain took a picture, This snapshot is the one thing I remember seeing before my mind was wiped completely blank.
My eyes opened as I struggled to breathe, as if the air had been knocked from me. I felt as if I’d been sitting here for hours. A strange smelling dust filled my nostrils in a sent of panic, and clouded my vision. The silence was deafening. But then I recognized that it wasn’t the silence that was blaring in my ears; it was the car horn, stuck on its note, continuously sounding through the thick, dusty, adrenaline-spiked air. I gazed around slowly, dazed and dizzy. In that moment, I knew what had happened. We had hit. The snapshot of the two cars only a couple seconds ago (or had it been whole minutes, maybe even hours?), only inches from impact flashed across my head.
Now, I also felt that I was okay. Or I was at least healthy. I was thinking clearly, and I couldn’t feel any blood or anything. Oh, thank you God, I’m okay. I’m alive. But just then, I remembered Jonathan. I turned to the drivers seat, almost too scared to look. Please God…let him be alright… I begged in my mind, as terror of losing him caught in my chest, numbing me in a freezing horror. In the clearing dust, though, I could see him, mouth and eyes open as he gazed around with the same stunned stupor I was in. Oh… God, thank you. I praised. He sat unharmed and conscious. Now, through the continuing horn, I heard another noise. A voice spoke, low and calm but urgent. My mind began to register what he was actually saying halfway through the sentence.
“….take the key out of the ignition, and get out.” A boy, who looked to be in his late teens, leaned in Jon’s open window. He repeated this a few times before Jonathan finally acted, slowly, almost reluctantly, turning the key and pulling it out of the ignition. The horn stopped, and the following silence was somehow even more deafening than the incessant blasting of the horn. I reached for the handle which was now behind my seat, and opened the door. As I moved, I could feel that my lap was wet with a mix of the Mountain Dew (which had been in the cup holder) and antifreeze. My lack of clear vision made me also notice that my glasses were gone. Stiffly, I staggered to the shoulder of the road. There, I clutched Jonathan as if to make certain that nothing could happen to him. At that time, the full weight of what had just occurred fell on me like a heavy blanket, and I began to sob.
The following events, involving the police, men sweeping the fragments of our crushed Escort off the road, the ambulance, my mother’s arrival, even the rest of the day, went by in a blur. Even the woman who had been driving the dented red car is now a blur.
But what I do remember was the sense of peace that followed. My mind felt loose and relaxed. The catastrophe I had been anticipating was over. It had happened, and I was still there, alive to tell the tale. My whole body, tense with adrenaline, seemed to sigh with relief.
In the previous spring, my cousin had gotten into a wreck, and been thrown from the car. This had completely destroyed his frontal lobe, and brain stem. In other words, he would never be able to function alone again. Therefore, the wreck had killed him. As a result, I had become aware that we all will die eventually. Through this realization, a fear deep and numbing was carried with me everyday. I was able to function normally but not without the Fear gripping to my brain. As the months passed, I had subconsciously grown more and more tense. The tension became a constant in my life. I was waiting for a catastrophe, a disaster that would hit closer to home than the death of my cousin.
As the months passed, I learned many things that pertain to this incident. But the one that continues to amaze me is the unpredictability of life. The only thing we can predict is its irregularity. However, instead of living in a fear of the future, I have learned to embrace the now. I no longer sit up nights frozen in the paralytic Fear that my body would shudder with until I was tired enough to fall asleep on my own. Now, the fears that are forefront on my mind are due dates, college plans and agendas, and most recently, reading essays in front of the class.
