I finished my final and I got an A in the one class I managed to stay in while battling the infamous depression and anxiety that have clung to me like a pissed-off cat for several years now.
I was hitting "next blog, next blog, next blog" sifting through the blogs of different people, in different places. Some personal, some professional and some.. well, I just don't know what some of them were.. And I started to see a pattern. For six "next blogs" I was bombarded with "Our Savior, Jesus Christ." If it wasn't in the title, it was in the "introduction" or what-have-you. So, I wonder if this is a sign. Not that I necessarily believe in those things, but if there's one thing I have learned in the short, but long 25 years I've been living is that nothing is impossible. And until I see something for my own eyes I will neither absolutely believe it nor absolutely dismiss it. Just like I don't dismiss people who say they've had paranormal experiences. I never have but I definitely don't want to say "HA! BE GONE WITH YOU, FOOL!" And have a poltergeist start terrorizing me because of my disbelief. I know it may sound silly, but that's just the way it is.
So, back to Jesus. I'm not exactly a religious person, but more spiritual. Okay, I know what you're thinking. If you believe in God, you're probably condemning me to hell or at best, praying for my soul. If you don't believe in God, you're laughing at my "spiritual" description. Here's the explanation: I believe there is a higher power. I have had too many experiences in my life to believe wholeheartedly in the chaos theory. I don't know enough about the truths of the universe to discredit it, as I've said, but I believe that some things happen for a reason. I don't believe the whole world is full of people by random chance. Do I believe we are given more choices and free will than most religions believe? Yes. But I think there are powers at work that we can't comprehend.
I have had 2 experiences that I can think vividly of that prove to me that there's more than the nothingness some people would have us believe is out there..(I'm sure there are more that I can't remember).
First- when I was 17 years old. My friend Erin and I were coming back from having beignets and hot chocolate at a place called Coffee Call (delicious beignets, by the way). Anyway! It was raining, I mean POURING and I was driving my new Honda Accord (used, but I had it for 3 months to the day, so new to me!). We were just talking about pulling off to the side of the road and waiting when the rain suddenly stopped beating against my car. It was raining, but not as badly and I could see much further in front of me than I had previously been able. So, since we were a few exits down from the exit to my house, I decided to just get home.
Passing the next exit by, I saw the 3 crosses. There is this church, called Bethany and the crosses stand in front of it. They had been erected a few weeks before.
It was shortly after passing the exit that my car started to lose traction. I realized I was hydroplaning. I don't know if you can, by any means of your imagination, see a 17 year-old girl in a hydroplaning vehicle. I was screaming at the top of my lungs. I already have a high pitched voice, use your imagination on that. And then cringe. I knew I was going to die. I just knew it. You know how they say your whole life flashes before your eyes. Well, with me, it didn't. All I could see was the light pole in the median that we were careening towards and thought of my friend, Erin. I stuck my arm out in front of her. I guess, instinctively, trying to protect her from the inevitable. I don't remember spinning in the road. I remember spinning in the grass. In the slow motion of what I thought were the last moments of my life, I do not remember careening toward the pole backwards the way it supposedly happened. But we did. In the end, my bumper was in my back seat. But Erin and I were okay. We were alive. We were bruised and scared and crying and holding each other. But we were fine! As we waited for the ambulance and police to get there, I looked at the marks in the grass. Trying to find where we'd spun before hitting the pole. There were no spinning tracks. Just tracks showing we'd headed for the pole, already backwards. I honestly, to this day, do not believe we spun on the road. I know people say when you're in an accident, you believe what you want to believe. You make your mind come up with things to deal with what happened. But I feel as if we were lifted and set down in a position that was safer. I know it sounds silly. Why not just have prevented the accident all together if there had been a guiding hand?
Maybe to make me believe. Or scare the shit out of me. Both things happened. I still hate driving in the rain but the first year I cried when I had to drive in the rain. I don't know if I even believe we were lifted and set down, but it's just the idea, you know, that there was something with us that night. I don't know if we'd have actually died. I don't know what injuries we'd have sustained either. I'd like to believe we were helped that night and I think most people like to believe in something like that.
Second- April 9, 2010. This day will always have a horrible but special place in my heart. My brother died that day, but my niece lived. She survived an accident that killed four people, including my brother. I won't pretend to know what happened that day and describe a biased story. I actually won't tell you anything but the facts, as known to me now. My brother was driving back from Texas in his 18-wheeler. He had his daughter with him. She asked to go on this trip with him. She begged and he said yes. So on the way back, he passed over a bridge. There was an 18-wheeler on the side of the road, stalled, without all of it's caution cone.. thingies? Anyway, the events of what happened next are shady. Something caused my brother's truck to go out of control. Whether my brother was asleep, having a heart attack, tire blew out, or simply lost control-we will never know. But after clipping the stalled truck, he crossed the median, hitting another 18-wheeler head on. After the fire had burned for hours, the police figured out there was a small SUV under the wreckage. More than 2 lives were lost. There were 4. I have grieved for them all. I won't go through the names, but I know them. And when I grieve for my brother on the day he died, I grieve for the other lives that were lost. I grieve for the families. And I hope they hold no hatred for my brother in their hearts, because hatred doesn't help you grieve. If you hold on to it for too long, it will consume you. I also hope they hold no hatred for the sole survivor-my niece. She was 15 years-old at the time. The reason she was even alive was because she was asleep in the back cab of the truck. I don't know how, but it disconnected on impact and saved her from burning. She sustained minor injuries (to her body) but permanent injuries to her heart. She screamed and cried for her daddy. She begged people to get him out. There was no hope. The fire was fueled by diesel from both trucks, as well as what my brother was carrying on his trailer. I hope my brother was already dead, or at least passed out, when the trucks caught fire. I hope for all of them that there was no pain. The reason I believe there is a God, or a higher being watching over us, is because of my niece. The sole survivor. I believe there's a reason she lived when they died. It was their time. But it wasn't hers.
I ask that you don't judge my beliefs, if anyone does happen upon this blog. I certainly won't judge yours. We all want to believe in something, no matter how cynical the person. Everyone wants to believe something amazing can happen. And sometimes, amazing things do.
I leave you with something that was played at my brother's funeral, if you care to listen. It's a little country, but so was he.
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