If She Died, I Would Not

’52 blue-green Ford: If She died, I would not

I was 16 or 17 driving my ‘52 blue-green Ford with standard shift. I pulled out on interstate highway 65 on the outskirts of Lake Village and all that I am about to tell you happened in less time than it will take for you to read about it here. But, as I hope you will see, the magnitude of the experience had little to do with linear time and everything to do with everything.

My old car began choking and sputtering just as I pulled out on the highway, while simultaneously I noticed a white,1961 Oldsmobile hurtling towards me at 60-70 mph in what was rightfully its lane and also where I was stalling. My mind deduced that I was not going to make it - that I would be hit and dead very shortly! So, as I was trying to shift gears and simultaneously stomping the gas pedal to the floor 17 years of life flashed through my mind – I knew it all at once: where I was born, who my parents were, my childhood, who I had become as a high school senior. 

And I knew I was the one watching this life. And if she died I would not.

One way of explaining it is that in this instance of extreme stress my ego was momentarily shattered, enabling me to know that I was not my physical body, the roles I played, or the events that had happened to me. 

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face.”

I return to this image in my mind from time to time for inspiration. It is an inner knowing - an affirmation of who I am; and an affirmation of who you are.

BTW my car shuttered across the road just in time and I have continued to live in my physical body for quite a few years since!