Four words that you don’t want to hear, especially when the call comes in the morning at a time you don’t usually hear from your son, the night owl-worker: “Are you sitting down?” “No.” “I’m okay ma, but I could have been dead…” A few weeks earlier, another budding comic, a young woman, his friend was in a car accident. Her call went differently. There was no happy ending. She died. Why her and not him? It wasn’t his time? And it was hers? Seems so. But why? We don’t know why. So, let’s accept it, embrace it, and move on. You didn’t have to have a car accident for your Mom to come see you. Let’s not let another year go by that we don’t see each other. Let’s not take for granted that we have all the time in the world because we don’t. Let’s bury the hatchets that need to be buried, repair the estrangements that shouldn’t be, and be and do love in the world. I am beyond grateful, thankful, prayerful, and mindful. I almost lost my son, he dodged another bullet (figuratively and literally a while back). Amen.
“Sit down, Ma, sit down.”
He was hit…by a cab…while crossing the street. He looked both ways, “like you taught me to.” The cab came out of nowhere. He was tossed into the air, his head slammed into the front window, he rolled off the car and started walking until he was stopped by witnesses.
Lots of bruises, a few scars, lingering pain, some stitches. Tremendous gratitude, tremulous wonder. Why did I survive? he thinks.
