Worthy

For a long time, I haven't had to relive my accident, haven't had to pass that said same spot, that dented guardrail on I-4 on the way to work. Re-assignment works like that.

Instead I hop onto I-95N, make the 30-minute drive to the city I now cover, sit through interminable City Council workshops and late night meetings.

But last week I pawed through my jump drives, searching for the folder where I'd saved evidence of the day I almost died; the day I faced death, gave it the OK and was forced, traumatically, to learn to live again.

I did it only because I needed to share that moment and that difficult period of survivor's guilt and all that came with it, with someone who cared.

And in that process I think I discovered a miracle. For what else can I call it?

If you read my initial account from June 2006, you'll see how the car ran off the road, how the driver's side slammed into the guardrail, how my face crunched against metal, how the car rolled over at least five times with me inside.

And yet, and yet, I look now at pictures of the car and realize with confusion that the driver's side door is free of damage, no dents, not even a scratch. How is that possible? I even have pictures of my swollen, battered face and bloodshot left eye to prove the trauma.

If the car ran off the road at roughly 80 miles per hour, if it slammed into the guardrail at not much less than that, if my face hit metal and I had physical injuries to prove it, if the car flipped over so many times, how is it possible for the door to remain untouched? It's not.

And yet it was. Every other side of the car was crumpled, but the door of the car outside where I sat on the driver's side mysteriously seemed untouched, even though I saw and felt the moment that same side of the car impacted the rail.

I can't explain it and looking at the picture above, I'm sure neither can you. I've decided to believe that in some form or fashion, in some way and for some reason I do not yet understand, I was protected.

I can only hope that it will one day become clear to me, that my path will unfold in a way that leads me to understand why I was saved, that I have some higher purpose I need to fulfill.

I dream about that day sometimes. And I wonder then if I am worthy.