I arrive home and go to bed. I can't wait to sleep in my bed, to stretch out and truly rest until morning, when I'll start all over again. Emails in the morning, meetings in the afternoon. Maybe I'll get to pick up my order today. My thoughts were flowing at their usual pace. I was making plans for the next day, as if Someone had guaranteed I'd make it to tomorrow. I was exhausted, I remember that very clearly. I was coming off a series of short nights and days of constant rushing. I had chronic fatigue, deep in my bones. I wasn't sleepy, but the accumulated fatigue was crushing me. I wasn't paying attention to my speed. I was only focused on the thought that I wanted to get home faster. That life, in its turmoil, was engulfing me, and I just wanted to rest.
Then, in the darkness of the A1 motorway, a little light appeared; I had reached a parking area. And then I clearly saw a puddle in front of me. It was pouring rain, but I hadn't seemed to understand anything until then. I was shattered, and my entire being seemed to function with a delay. And sluggish, as in a stupor akin to death. When I saw the accumulation of water, I understood it wouldn't be easy. But I didn't fully anticipate the outcome. I gripped the steering wheel tightly and thought it would be like other times; the car would shake a little, I'd hear the hiss of the water crushed by the wheels, and then everything would settle back to normal. The front half of the car passed through the water unimpeded. I heard the hiss, I felt the car shaking. But this time there was something extra. Something unwelcome. The rear no longer obeyed the steering and began to dance. A tango of death in milliseconds. I heard it hit the guardrail. I felt it propel me further and dramatically change my direction. Towards where? I couldn't distinguish anything anymore. I understood that now everything would be different. For the worse. I tugged at the steering wheel, trying to right the car, hoping it would obey me. But no. The steering wheel seemed completely detached from the wheels. It moved chaotically, and the wheels completely ignored it. The car was on its own. From now on, it went wherever it pleased, with me a captive passenger in an express train of horror.
Then I heard the first blow, the first frontal impact with the guardrail on the right. The airbags exploded instantly, becoming a white curtain that blocked all visibility to the outside. Perhaps it was better to be a blind witness. I started to scream; I was surprised by myself. I could have counted on the fingers of one hand the situations in my life where I had screamed. That's how I had been raised; it's 'not proper' to scream. So in my entire life, I had screamed (out of fear) perhaps twice; and not because there weren't reasons. But my upbringing had always acted like an invisible leash, like a gag that had stifled every sound. It's not proper to scream. Now I was doing it, and I understood that what was happening to me was serious, very serious. Is this perhaps the end? So sudden? So unexpected? So unannounced? I'm only 44 years old; I'm as healthy as a horse. And I always take care of my health. Of myself. I have plans in progress. And I had just left confession. Is this the end now?
And, again, a smash. And another. And a dizzying sensation, like when I'm forced to spin in circles. Am I actually spinning? A suffocating smoke cut off my breath. And a final frontal impact. A final sinister sound, of metal on metal. A second of silence, then a surge of survival instinct. I need to get out fast, the car is full of smoke. Is something burning? And I'm on the A1 motorway. If a car comes now, it'll smash me like a bowling ball hitting pins.
I got out faster than ever. More awake than ever. More energetic than ever in my life. Behind me, I hear a voice in the car asking how I am, where I am, if I'm hurt. Ah, I forgot that these new cars automatically set up an emergency call in case of impact. I started talking to the 112 dispatcher. I was afraid to get into the car because it was shrouded in that choking smoke. What if it exploded too? I was in the rain and breathing rapidly. Too rapidly, as if I had run a marathon. I could barely answer the questions. A truck stopped beside me. An angel of a man, sent to instruct me on what to do to prevent a chain tragedy: the reflective triangle, the reflective vest on me. Am I hurt? I felt absolutely nothing. I looked at my bleeding hand, but it seemed to belong to another body. Nothing hurt. Only the rain bothered me. It's cold and I don't like the cold. Nor the night. But now I have both, oh! As if on cue, cars started appearing. I was afraid they might not see me, hit my car, and multiply the disaster. It seemed they were coming so fast... they invariably stopped to ask if I was okay. Was I? Someone even got out next to me to make sure I was alright. Was I?
I waited in the cold and rain for the police and ambulance to arrive and to escape this nightmare I never thought I'd end up in. Cars passed by me, slowing down, asking how I was, and then driving off. The "angel" had left too; I saw that he felt bad leaving me there, but he had to reach Bucharest with his cargo. I understood. He had been there exactly when and for as long as he needed to be. Moments that felt like ages. I looked at my hand and marveled that it didn't hurt, even though it was covered in blood. My finger was seven times larger in volume. And no pain. Then I saw the police siren. It had taken them 15 minutes to reach 20 kilometers from Pitești. The ambulance took just as long. If someone had severe trauma, those 15 minutes would have been fatal. What a country! With puddles on highways and "urgent" interventions in 15 minutes, 20 kilometers from a county seat city... I understood once again that hope is only Up there. And towards there, I gave thanks incessantly, from the moment I had emerged unharmed from the crushed metal of the car.
The police arrived first. When they blocked the two lanes of traffic, across which my car was sitting perpendicularly, I breathed a sigh of relief. Now, surely, no other car would crush me in a crazy rush, like mine just moments ago. Then a small policeman, with a childlike gaze, approached me. Am I okay? He couldn't believe I was, given the car's state. "You had a close call," he told me, as he made his way through the airbags and got inside. The engine started, but the car was like a monolith, it wouldn't budge. "You'll need a flatbed with a special system to lift it from here," he told me.
Flatbed? It was as if a valve had been unblocked. What a "coincidence" that everything happened near Pitești, my hometown. I was afraid to call my sister. What would I have told her at 2 AM? That I almost died instantly? I chose to call her husband. I felt like crying when I heard his voice. How good it is to be alive!, I gently thought to myself. He was coming right away; he too was shocked by what I was telling him had happened. Then the SMURD team arrived. The same reaction, of stupefaction that I hadn't been hurt at all in a high-speed highway accident. They insisted on bandaging my finger and taking my blood pressure. I was somewhat happy, because that meant getting into the ambulance; finally, the rain wouldn't get me wet anymore.
Then I had a moment to look at my dress. My white, Grecian-style dress, of which I was so proud. It was stained with blood, crumpled, and seemed scared too. I sat on the mobile bed, they put the blood pressure monitor on me, and we started talking. „It's good that you're well, given the accident that happened here... You had a close call. We're coming from Vidraru, from another intervention.” I looked at them, surprised, not quite understanding what had happened. They sighed. I asked with my eyes. „What more can we do? He jumped 166 meters down. He was 22 years old.” I froze. How close death can be. And how young that child was. I became deeply saddened. Between life and death is a boundary like a film of water. Like the film of water I had entered half an hour earlier.
„14 over 7. It's from the shock, it'll go down. Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital?” Shock? In the adrenaline I had stored up, I hadn't registered any shock. But, as time went on, everything seemed to come to life. My body began to ache, the hematomas to become more pronounced, and the questions to grow deeper. After more than two hours, things seemed to return to normal: the car was on the flatbed, the highway cleared of the car's broken components, police formalities completed, traffic resumed. Only I was no longer the same. When I parted ways with my brother-in-law, whom I had great difficulty convincing not to take me to Bucharest, I heard the same remark: „You had a close call.” I barely held back my tears; it was the third time I had heard this in only two hours. And I understood, despite the shockwave that still gripped me, that, yes!, death had been clinging to me. Only Someone hadn't allowed it to embrace me.
I feigned courage when I got behind the wheel of my sister's car. How could I have cost my brother-in-law another 4-5 hours of sleep, for him to take me to Bucharest, leave me the car, and return by train? Besides, I had heard from others that if you don't drive relatively soon after a road accident, there's a chance you might develop a phobia. All the way to Bucharest I drove carefully; like a newly licensed driver, who devoutly respects the rules and speed limits. The same weather conditions, the same torrential rain falling incessantly, but a different „me”.
At the hospital, even my last fears were shattered. There was no fracture, internal organs were intact, and blood tests – perfect. I felt like crossing myself ceaselessly. I really have nothing? Nothing at all? It was the impossible made possible.
When I got home and closed the door behind me, I began to cry. Softly, liberatingly. To thank Him with all my being for saving me. To tell Him that I suspect why this happened to me, but that I'm afraid to promise Him I will change what needs to be changed. That I'm ashamed to promise, and then betray Him again. That I believe, but I cannot, and that I ask Him to „help my helplessness”. And I remembered how, only a few days before, I had asked Him to help me break free from my old „self”. That wicked, corrupted, and ungrateful one. And that I had insisted He awaken me somehow, but not with an illness. Because I'm afraid of illnesses and couldn't bear them. And everything that had happened to me in the middle of a cold, wet, and terribly dark night seemed to be the very answer to my prayer.
Then other and other events unfolded in my mind, now gaining new meaning. A wave crashed, along with the hardened scales of a devastating pride. The driving test, the city exam. I had driven at 60 km/h and never missed an opportunity to say it; how great I felt that I had passed by committing perhaps a driver's most dangerous mistake – not respecting the speed limit. And see where this very mistake had led me, decades later. To a whisper of death. It had whistled in my ears, along with the aquaplaning. Then, in the very recent past, just five days before the accident, an exchange with an Uber driver who had assumed I didn't drive. "I am actually an extremely good driver!" I said arrogantly and sharply. And immediately in my mind, I heard a gentle voice scolding me, reminding me that I am nothing without God. I vaguely approved. And just two days later, in a new discussion about driving, I repeated the exact same statement, about what a good driver I (thought I) was, how many hundreds of thousands of kilometers I had driven, and so on. The same voice, a little more reproving now, the same superficial approval. The same reckless pride.
My gaze slid over my body. Large hematomas, covering almost all my limbs entirely. Airbag burns on my right arm. 38 hours of sleeplessness. And the pains that were starting to be felt. Small pains, it's true. But it was the first time I almost rejoiced that something hurt. As if, to a shamefully tiny extent, I had atoned for something after the accident.
Then I thought of the saints of the day the mishap occurred. I thanked them too. Then of Saint Phanourios, whose feast was in just one more day. I had planned beforehand to make the famous bread rolls, so that my (many) requests would be fulfilled. Pffft, the same wicked servant, who worked only for "wages," never for the Master's love. But now I was happy just for the simple fact that I could live to celebrate the Saint's feast. That, simply put, I would be alive on his day. What other requests could I have? I was alive, I had been granted more time, and this was by far the most important request I could have had. But one I had never understood until then.
When I calmed down a bit, I plucked up my courage and called my spiritual mother, intending to ask her to tell the Father everything that had happened, as the Father does not have a phone. I so desperately needed to know that the Father knew, that he was praying for me! As if his prayers hadn't (also) helped lead to such a happy outcome! And such a rare one. But my spiritual mother did much more than that; she went to him and put him on the phone for me. What joy, what peace, what comfort! Whoever has a spiritual father understands more and better than I could describe in words. And His Holiness's advice will accompany me everywhere and always: let us always embark on a journey with prayer, let us pray for God to protect us from accidents, let us be surrounded by prayer. Amen!
Alina
Photograph by Ray Bilcliff / pexels.com