when you know you are going to die time really does slow down.
i almost died in a car crash when i was 4 or 5 and again i almost died when i was 20 years old.
the first time it was winter. i was sitting in the front seat of a very high, narrow van. dressed in my snow suit. i could hardly see out the window because there was so much snow. i still remember the sound of the windshield wipers going back and forth and that soft crunching of snow. everything is always so silent in the snow. usually peaceful too. i hardly saw the black dog that my mom swerved off the road to miss.
before the van started to roll time slowed right down. i will never forget my mom unbuckling her seat belt looking back at my brother and sister and then reaching over to put her arms around me. then the van rolled over and kept on rolling and we landed right side up. that part happened really fast. but her looking at me before that lasted forever. the doctors couldn't believe that we didn't have a scratch on us. must have been the snow suits that protected us. what they couldn't believe at all was that our mom was still alive. the drivers side was completely smashed in, and she should have been mashed potatoes. her reaching over to save me actually saved herself. if she hadn't have unbuckled and moved....she would have died.
the next car accident wouldn't happen for a while. i'm sure i must have been 20. we were driving at night. my friend and i were talking. we turned to face the curve in the bend at the same time just to realize too late that she was going way too fast, the curve was too sharp and going downhill and we were never going to make it. again, same thing, time slowed right down. she looked at me in the eyes and i swear she said sorry to me with her eyes and i heard her thoughts say 'sorry i'm going to kill us' and i said goodbye to her, we were telepathic, and our third friend was silent in the back. we were all silent, no screaming, nothing. we just accepted our fate, for a moment. the next thing i remember is that my friend driving let go of the wheel. while i was waiting for the impact of going over the edge of the barrier and down the cliff....something strange happened.
i imagined a giant ocean...a giant ocean with no shore that just went on and on and on and i imagined that at the moment of impact with that barrier, that i would merge with this giant ocean. i would splinter into a million pieces back into that. and just when i was prepared to shoot out of my body into the unknown...in my head i said "no, wait, no, not yet....i have more to do...way more to do here" and it was at that exact moment, that the back end of the car swerved to balance out the front bumper, so that instead of flipping over, we shimmied along the railing and swung out to the other side of the road.
i don't know why i feel like sharing this now... except that i was thinking about fight club recently, the movie, and those near life experiences. i really feel like we all have a personal purpose on this earth to fulfill. and i also believe that we each have appointed times to fulfill it. we may each have many different fates depending on any given choice of any given moment. but all of those fates even as various as they may be are interconnected and predestined.
my mind cannot fathom it, just as i cannot fathom the spider and her immaculate web;
i cannot touch it. i cannot dissect it. i can barely even see it except when it glitters in the sunlight. as soon as i reach to touch it...it slips through my fingers as if it never was. all i can do is stupidly analyse and wonder open mouthed at the entire amazing and spectacular process.
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