This Fragile Life

I'm alive.

It was near the end of a great weekend... Had an interview that sucked (obviously that doesn't fall in the 'great' category), had fun at a fete, watched live as B.C. Lara made his glorious 30th century, got the chance to see a second day of cricket, chilled with my crazy friends from the panyard, and saw my sister who's been away at school for the past 5 months. I was down to the last lap, the ride home. Me, my sis and my father chatted, discussed, and laughed away from the airport to Harbour Street. Then we got to an intersection with traffic lights; I heard my sister exclaim to my father 'look out!' I looked up just in time to see a blue vehicle slamming into my door...

Probably from the adrenaline rush of it all, my first instinct was to jump out of the car, once we'd stopped. Then it dawned on me that there was no way that door was gonna open. So I got out through the drivers door, and walked around the vehicle to see how far i was from serious injury. Not far. In fact, too painfully near. I turned and watched my father and the frantic lady driver arguing it out in the middle of the street. They both saw green. I wasn't looking, but I don't doubt my family; both my sister and my father saw green. If you know me well enough you'd know that I had to get in on the arguement. These days I deal with the temper well though- I said a bit, in heavy tone, but then I walked back to my sister who was trying desperately to keep my father's blood pressure down and me from telling the lady about her parts. The lady went on and on about how my 'wicked' father who almost killed her grandson. He's a little baby, and was in his childseat. She went on and on about how frightened her little baby was. Finally some humour, because the baby was strangely enough as quite as ever. I was extremely happy that he was ok, and perhaps not as traumatised as she'd like to make it seem.

A policeman witnessed the accident from a distance. She told the police that we 'flew' through the red light. I rebut. He agrees with me; he saw us, and we weren't speeding. She's a liar. The policeman didn't see the lights, but he found it strange that both us and another car which was travelling alongside us would want to break the red light at once. She got herself a witness. How credible? We'll see. He even admits he didn't actually see the accident and was walking in the opposite direction. Long story. It's all to be settled in court in a few weeks.

Anyway, the point of this post was never really to get into the who-done-it's of the issue. I just needed to vent, again.

We all know how these issues have a way of putting things into perspective. It did for me. I like to think sometimes that we can control our own safety. But if that were true, nobody would die on the roads, or by the gun, or anything of the sort, because we'd see it coming. I didn't see the car coming. In fact, it was only when it was inches away that I saw it. If she had been driving faster and thus caused me to be seriously injured or worse, there's nothing I could've done about it. Life is fragile.

That said, it was a wake-up call to me, a reminder that God isn't waiting on me to be ready for him. He takes me when he sees it fit. What state I'm in is up to me. We can plan our lives all we want, do all these things that make us happy NOW, but you never know if that 'tomorrow' you refer to will actually meet you. I'm thankful for this life, and today, for this wake-up call. It's my choice to do something with this lesson, and I hope I do. I hope you all do as well. I had the time of my life this weekend. So easily it could've become the time of my death.

Do what you can to make your life the best it can be, in your eyes, and everyone elses, but especially God's. I'm thankful for his blessings, all of them.

I'm alive.