A few days later I found out that the twenty year old son of a friend of mine had died in a similar car crash five days prior to mine. It took me some courage to pick up the phone. It was the first time I had talked to a mother whose child had just died. She told me that she loved me. I told her that I loved her.

It felt that I had escaped without a scratch. This was not actually true. The torn rotator cuff took six months to heal. But I did have to deal with the survivor guilt. He died. I didn’t; although I had literally come inches from death. One of the first questions Alicia asked me at the hospital was whether I had crashed deliberately. I was unable to answer on account of fifteen minutes of pre-concussion amnesia. The fact that I didn’t know says something, doesn’t it?

I contacted my friend on her birthday a couple of weeks ago. It got me thinking. I know that her son did not die for me in any literal sense. Yet I can choose to imbue his death with personal meaning. I can honor him by not squandering what my car crash has given me. It gave me the opportunity to wheel. Wheel I shall. One result is I can say that if I die in a car crash today, it was not deliberate.

Joyful participation in the sorrows of the world.

@Beth. Thank you for your condolences about the accident not being worse. What is weird elsewhere is normal here.

@Brice. No, no air bag. I had only very minor cuts and bruises to the face though. Those have all healed up (11 days post crash).

@Cath. I’d never been in an ambulance before. It did feel a bit like a television show!

@Sophie. I had a few seconds of disbelief. It wasn’t until I looked down and saw all the shards of glass on my thighs that I thought “Okay, this is real.”

Do you remember our recent e-mail exchange, Sophie? We were talking about learning from one’s mistakes. You had mentioned about crashing your car. I replied to you “I’ve never been in a car crash other than minor fender benders. I keep wondering exactly what kind of car crash would maximise the probability of paraplegia versus other injuries.” Wow, Sophie! I wrote that to you thirteen days before the crash.

@Lane. I like geometry puzzles; so the extrication was rather fun.

@Tom. When I wrote this post, I also didn’t know how much intent there was in the crash. I shall be addressing the issue in more detail in a post coming up next week.

Left shoulder is pretty painful. Okay apart from that.

We, readers, don’t know whether your accident was (even remotely) intentional, but after reading so many reckless episodes from you, skiing, hiking, and now driving, I can’t help thinking “how far is she going to go?”.

Y o u a r e n o t i n d e s t r u c t i b l e !!!

but you are bloody lucky :)

(and, yes, you also are terribly unlucky, because this could have brought you what you need and it didn’t, f****** s*** it didn’t)

I wish I could take on what’s eating you…. but I can hardly take on what’s eating me :( People like you and many others on this blog are good reasons for me to carry on… Anyway, I hope you’re not going to be in more physical pain after this, take care.

I’m so sorry the whole thing has left you confused and shaken…being in a dramatic car accident and not even coming close to paraplegia must have been a big shock.

Seems a bit wierd to say this bt we’re all wierd so here we go – I’m sorry your accident wasn’t worse, in the way you wanted it to be, and I hope you psychologically recover quickly from your near miss.