A second in hell.....


I am driving along, slowly in the town.
I see a young girl on the side of the road waiting – and then in the next second there is a thud and the windscreen splinters.
Oh my god.
I pull to the side of the road.  My heart is beating so fucking fast.  I ask the hitchhiker next to me if he is able to go to the child.  He says no.  I can’t move towards her.   I find myself making my way to the vets rooms.  I know the women there.  Tanya immediately goes outside.  Sandra calls the ambulance and police.  I am sitting on the bench where I normally sit with my animals, but now there is some internal animal of grief and shock in place of them.
The chairs are red plastic.  I see people streaming to the child.  I just breathe very heavily, very deliberately.   There is nothing I can do.   An accident has happened and I was the instrument.
In between I scream deeply and loudly,  I am torn apart.
Tanya  walks to the child – Ruanda – 7 years old who is lying in the middle of the road with people all around her but no one actually down on the ground with her.  So Tanya (bless her) goes onto the ground and talks to the child.   The child asks her if she is dying and she answers of course not silly- you are still talking aren’t you.  The child and Tanya bond there whilst waiting for the ambulance.
Tanya with her enigmatic aliveness and compassion just showering onto this child.  I am inside not knowing if she is alive or dead.   It is the most agonizing state of not knowing.   The ambulance comes and Ruanda asks Tanya if she will go with her to the hospital.  Tanya said no, but that she would go and visit her there.  Her mother was there as well.  But like me could not bear to do what Tanya did so effortlessly and graciously.  I could not have asked for a better angel c being at that moment.

Unable to drive home, Sandra delivered me to my door, where I was met with embraces and support.  
Tanya just called to say that  Ruanda was released from hospital and is fine.

So after the shock I find myself in a funk.    Like a low grade depression moving in and then this voice says out loud – for fucks sake susan you should be joyous and you should be celebrating.  Yes you were in an accident.  But  the child is safe,  you are insured, your license was in order (kind of rare).
At any second it could have become a racial issue, because the group gathered around could so easily become a mob, as is happening with frequency nowadays.  People are just getting hungry enough for intolerance to grow.
Everyone involved in this ‘accident’  from the police to the insurance, to my friends at the vet – for Ruanda herself in that her destiny was not to die or be maimed at that moment in time.
And for me, I obviously had to have this experience at this moment in time.
Otherwise it could not have happened.
So I am sitting here with a fat smile on my face and thanking life so intensely for me not being  in profound grief right now.
Thank you for making the lesson so light.

It is about making each moment count - we never know when it will be our last.

I choose to dance with life more fully than ever before.

And the fact that Gadaffi is still free and fighting those fuckers - well it just makes it more of a celebration.


 Sage when he was younger - i love the shadow of the snake on his t-shirt.

Comments

Zoner said…
Oh dear one - not even able to BEGIN to imagine what you have just been through, yet am not at all surprised by the manner in which it all transpired. To see the meaning of such an encounter, the true, deep lesson that is seemingly contained in every moment we choose to be aware, is truly a blessing and a sign of your deepest strength and connection. Praise All that the child was safe and that you are as well. And no surprise that an angel was present in this moment of need. Please be gentle with yourself and welcome the care of those that love you as this gets processed further.
Anonymous said…
flowing in oceans
of harmony lotions
in star tops whistling
spontaneous motions
in frequency potions
opened composing
medicine streaming
that form on true notions
of infinate rising
growing and climbing
flowing and gathering
and reaching aligning
and signing the instance
of hearts truely binding
and winding through rivers
of unity shining

..peace..

have a poem su,,,,I can only imagine the shere massive trauma running a little one over would be,,,,thank god she was totaly fine,,,,,

also have some deep earthly love...neil
Pangolin said…
A few years back I was pulling my car into my driveway at night when I suddenly braked to a halt. It took me a second to figure out why.

There, a foot in front of my fender was a shaken and frightened mother on a bicycle who was towing her baby in a bicycle trailer. She had neither lights nor reflectors showing and was effectively invisible until the last second. I'm not sure how I saw her in time.

Driving is this odd thing that we accept but do not truly understand. Everyone who drives a car goes by grace alone and some point or another.
chickory said…
terrifying! at first, I thought it was a dream the way you wrote it. But then when there is an accident like this, it is indeed very dreamlike. SO glad you had Tanya and that the child is fine. I loved that you wrote "thank you for making the lesson so light". rejoice in each moment you are here and fine. and you are for today. and that makes me happy.
nina said…
After so much loss, you gain. Score one on the high side.
Time out for Gratitude.
The smiling face that held you, holds you closer.
Anonymous said…
Life is so strange.

- Aangirfan
nobody said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
nobody said…
Hullo Su, I'm late to this one as per usual. But I know exactly how you feel. I was a motorcyclist for twenty years odd and was consoled by the fact that I'd be unlikely to take somebody out.

But then there were pillions. I actually had a collection of newspaper clippings about motorcyclists who'd survived crashes but had had their pillion die. What a nightmare.

But mostly it was me that was on the receiving end. I was knocked off my bike any number of times. Half the time by myself, ha ha.

Anyway with so many close encounters with the macadam I thought about it and decided that vehicles are perfectly unnatural things which humans, who for most of their evolution have never travelled faster than running speed, are entirely unsuited to.

And yet people jump in their car to 'just go down the shops'. 'Just'? I reckon it would be more correct to think, 'I'm climbing into a ton of glass and steel which I shall propel about at speeds of 20m a second with my vision obscured by numerous visual blocks.' We might drive a bit differently if we thought that way.

Anyway I quit. And let other people drive, ha ha. But now I've bought a van. What are you going to do? It's drive or fuck off in this country.

At least mate you're lucky to have had a wake up call wherein no great harm was done. Theoretically I don't need one. But! I still touch wood and declare that 'there but for the grace of God go I', and of course try to remind myself a ton of glass and steel at 20m a second.
nobody said…
And that first one was me. I screwed up the cut and paste somehow.

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