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.