Ever dodged a bullet? Winston Churchill said words to the effect: “There is nothing so exhilarating as to be fired at without effect” and I understand that, after the events of January 1, 2007.
The day started out peacefully. It was the first day of the new year. My wife, dog, and I were staying at a beachfront motel in Ocean Beach (near San Diego), where we went hiking and played with dozens of other dogs and their humans on the sands. Before 8PM the evening, I went driving in search of dinner to bring back. I took a weird route (didn’t know why at the time, but that comes into play later) and ended up driving south on a dark section of the 5 freeway, a mile before intersecting the 8, below an unlit overpass.
Like some kind of horror movie, the image of a man crossing the freeway, his back turned to me, filled the windshield. I snapped the steering wheel left and 6000 pounds of Expedition missed hitting him at 65 MPH by a few feet. The driver behind me was not so quick and I heard a thud, then pulled over rapidly and ran back to attempt an assist. I found the car behind me on the shoulder, radiator split, winshield smashed, and the front of the car bent in. The pedestrian was on the ground in front of the car. Since this is a family blog, I won’t go into details, but it was clear he was gone, less than 60 seconds after I had seen him walking across the freeway. I considered CPR, but it would not have helped him.
The CHP was on the scene within a few minutes, blocking the on-ramp, stopping traffic on the freeway, putting out flares, and guiding the ambulance in to the scene. The officer asked me to step back to my car and now my role was limited to saying a prayer for the pedestrian, his family who will miss him, and for the smashed car’s driver who was on that stretch of freeway at that time.
I felt a bond with the man who died, although I saw him alive for only a second. He looked like a Hispanic immigrant, with no shirt, mid-20s, and ragged pants. I could have chatted with him in Spanish over lunch at a nearby taqueria but instead I was praying for him and his family on a dark freeway. That was all I could do and might have felt helpless. But my sense was in something greater at work here. There was a solemnity to the evening, a calmness, a sense of quiet power. It is not God’s will that a 20-year-old man be killed by a car, but God was present on that dark night. Look at all that He managed to do despite the evil events:
- He put me on that highway, far from any restaurant, although that was what I was looking for
- He prevented me from hitting the man with my car
- He provided CHP and ambulance to protect the people from any more harm and give what medical attention was possible
- He provided someone to pray for the man’s soul and that of his family
- He did not let the man die alone. I’m sure there were angels present, from what we know about them, but I didn’t see them.
What did I take away from this event? How did it change me? Surprisingly, the shock and horror that you’d expect to feel were absent, neither was I numb. I did my duty (“Stop and render assistance” according the CHP officer) without upset, then stepped back to play my tiny spiritual role. The passing of a human being was an event of utter solemnity and power, as if the earth had quietly shifted on its axis. I was completely alert but do not remember the sounds of cars, although their headlights streamed by. The death was neither trivial nor pointless. As the CHP officers calmly went about their job of handling the events, I felt the angels were doing the same on the spiritual realm: calling the man’s family and friends who had already passed to come greet him, dispensing Grace to those on Earth, and letting the passed man see them and explain his new life.
My overpowering sense was not of the triviality of human life, but of its importance. Taking life unseriously, either by becoming despondent and drug-addicted, or by daydreaming when driving an SUV, is to devalue life. Stay alert, be awake, and be a cause of events, rather than an effect. But at the same time realize that there are no coincidences. The large events around you are scripted by a power greater than yourself. You want to act in concert with that divine plan. To do so requires obedience, receptivity, and seriousness.
And no one, no matter how hopeless or how dark the night, dies alone.