I Almost Got Hit By A Car Last Night
It was night. It was raining. I had a walk signal.
I waited in the drizzling rain for that walk signal, and as I entered the intersection, I noticed that the car in the oncoming left turn lane wasn’t slowing down as it rounded the corner and barreled toward me.
In the split second I had to react, I realized that our current trajectories would put the middle of the car’s bumper in the middle of my thigh.
I started moving faster through the crosswalk, sure that it would notice me and try to stop. It didn’t, and I found myself lunge-leaping forward to get out of the car’s path. I could feel the heat from the passing vehicle’s exhaust at my back as I landed clear, legs fully intact.
I looked back as the car sped away and saw the terrified face of the driver in the car at the front of the oncoming traffic lane. Her mouth was wide open as she looked over at me and shook her head.
I can’t blame the driver of the car, even though I want to. It was the worst time to be driving — a light drizzle and already wet pavement reflecting every headlight and streetlight and obscuring the environment. I don’t understand why he/she didn’t see me when they were upon me, but maybe they did and just couldn’t react in time.
Whenever I experience a close call like this, two things pass through my head. The first is of course, “Thank you, God!”
The second is a rather dark mental picture of the alternate reality — the Choose Your Own Adventure page that I didn’t take — where the text doesn’t go all the way down to the bottom of the page because it’s precluded by a bold “The End.”
I see myself crumpled on the sidewalk, the driver rushing out of the car and yelling, “I didn’t see you!” and calling paramedics. I see other people getting out of their cars to help. Someone grabs my cell phone, but the security code prevents them from unlocking any useful information about me or contact info for any loved ones who would need to know about this. They find my wallet and wait for the police to arrive to be able to contact my next of kin. Actually, I’m not even sure how my next of kin would be contacted. Do the police have my wife’s cell phone number? I don’t think we’re in the phone book and we have no home landline.
My next of kin is actually only two blocks away awaiting my arrival. She would start to worry after a while and no doubt call me. I guess that’s how she would find out…when a cop answers the phone.
Meanwhile, the ambulance would drive me to a nearby hospital in who-knows-what condition. Would the impact have sent me flying clear of the car’s path? Or would I have sailed up the front of the car toward the windshield?
Thankfully it doesn’t matter. I continue walking and meet up with my wife. I was spared.
Today I had a PET scan to mark three months’ remission from Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The “good” kind of cancer. I was spared.
Despite six months of chemotherapy, I am back to my pre-cancer strength and weight and health and — more often than I should be— perspective.
Sometimes I find myself already losing the feeling of blessed bliss that the process of being cured of a terrible illness had seemingly so permanently instilled.
For my fourth PET scan, I found myself getting annoyed by the dietary restrictions required to ensure a successful scan — no sugars or carbohydrates for 24 hours before the test. Welcome to Hell! Why do I have to keep doing this?!
Then I almost got hit by a car and that old familiar grateful perspective hit me instead.
I’m doing it because I live in a time when technology exists to ensure that my cancer stays away.
I’m doing it because I beat cancer. Those are three words that millions of others can’t say.
I’m doing it because that car didn’t hit me and I’m going to the hospital for a short morning test rather than months of therapy to learn to walk again.
Hopefully it won’t take another near death experience in a crosswalk or half a year fighting a potentially fatal disease for me to hold on to these grateful thoughts and remember them more frequently.
It’s a wonderful life.
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