Fate takes the next step

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

In the morning, the gully between the trees into which the car had plunged, seems smaller than it did at midnight. I drive past and am amazed that an automobile fit in that spot, never mind landed there. A few inches either way, and the driver would have been hurt, might have been killed. The car windshield was smashed, the front end shattered; but the driver emerged unscathed. She'd been wearing a seat belt, and an angel no doubt was sitting beside her.

We heard the car flying down the street. It roared out of the late night silence, alerting us like lightening before a storm. There was a screech of brakes, a thin, long, wail, a thudding crash, metal buckling. Then nothing.

Nothing was the worst. Lauren, I thought. Lauren isn't home. We ran barefoot from the house, my husband, daughter and I in search of a red car, hoping we wouldn't find it.

We didn't. The car, which had smashed through a fence and plunged into a hole, was grey and belonged to someone else. The driver was a child, only 16. Someone else's daughter. Someone else's miracle tonight.

The police arrived, then an ambulance. The girl was frightened but composed."I don't know what happened," she kept saying. "I was driving and the car started to shake. I don't know what happened."

We walked home, the three of us, grateful that tragedy had passed us by, us and another family we'll never even know. But we didn't sleep much that night. In the morning, when I passed the spot where the car had been and saw exactly how close tragedy had come, I wondered how it is that people ever sleep.

A fraction of an inch, a milisecond, a single word - can change a life forever. One moment everything is going along as it always has, and the next, that familiar, day-to-day world, which you told yourself would always be, isn't anymore. It has gone the way of dreams. It simply doesn't exist.

On a basketball court, my daughter's friend sets up to slam dunk a ball. This is his recreation, his after work fun. The game doesn't count, but how it's played does. He's intent on the shot, not thinking of how an injury could wipe out his summer and his earning power as well. He depends on his arms, his legs and his strong back to pay his bills.

But he's not thinking about this now. He's under the net, his right hand on top of the ball. Then the ball is in his palm, balanced there as he lifts it above his waist, his shoulders, his head, into the wide circle of orange/red rim.

He sinks the ball but then stumbles over something, someone. Losing his balance, he crashes to the floor.

His elbow shatters and his arm breaks in five places. Two days later he is in a hospital bed wondering how he is going to earn a living this summer, pay his bills. How he will survive.

A high school friend is sick with cancer. Six weeks ago she was fine, healthy, in control. Now she isn't. Now she is fighting for her life.

This is the way it happens. It isn't fair, but nothing is.

In these pivotal moments that alter a life, forever, or for just a short time, we robot-like, pedantic, preoccupied, work-obsessed human beings, emerge from our self-inflicted spells and look up and around and for a while appreciate the world in which we live.

We actually notice beauty in ordinary people and in ordinary things. A swatch of blue sky glimpsed from a window; one tree in full bloom; a kindness from a stranger; a visit from a friend; the sound of a loved one's voice; the feel of a kiss; the fragrance of fresh air.

With sudden acuity, these every day wonders are recognized as precious. And all the things we believe are wonderful, all the things we pursue - power, success, security, prestige - are seen for what they are: cold comfort when you're stopped dead in your tracks.

Crisis opens our eyes to new dimensions.

Essayist Arthur Koestler calls them planes: "On some rare occasions, when confronted with death or engulfed in the oceanic feeling, we seem to fall through a stage trap and are transferred to the tragic or absolute plane. Then all at once the pursuits of our daily routine appear as shallow, trifling vanities. But once safely back on the trivial plane we dismiss the experience of the other as phantasms of overstrung nerves."

We live our lives in pursuit of vanities, chasing after what doesn't last. For brief moments we recognize this. But then we refocus, readjust, realign our site and continue on.