I can think of three moments in my life where I thought I was going to die. Two in a car, and one on a mountain.
In each of those moments, the same thing bore true: radical, unemotional, unattached acceptance. Not fear, not worry, not dread. Not relief, not sadness, nor regret. Just all-consuming acceptance.
The first incident occurred when I was 20 years old and driving in the middle of a rainstorm in Kansas with a woman named Carmen from Zimbabwe. We were on our way to a church in Kansas City and had been belting out worship songs at the top of our lungs for the previous three hours when an unexpected storm came upon us, as they often do mid-summer in Tornado Alley. It was unusual that I was driving, one because I had only recently become comfortable driving on the interstate a year prior - mainly out of necessity - and, two because I did not know Carmen very well.
As the rain fell harder and the sky grew grayer, the scenery above morphed into the scenery below and suddenly I could no longer make out the sky from the road. Tense, yet hyped up on remnants of atmospheric glory I believed had materialized as a byproduct of hours of impassioned singing, I felt like I was invincible.
Until I saw the taillights of a hydroplaning semi in front of me. Through frantic windshield wipers, I realized I didn’t have enough time to safely stop and avoid inevitable disaster: death by fantastical roadway collision*. (*Death by lack of attention and inexperienced, distracted driving).
Vaguely remembering what my dad had said to do in cases of snow - this wasn’t snow - I pumped my brakes a few times in an attempt to control the course of my collision. There was no shoulder to retreat to. No adjacent lane to tuck into. No use in trying to slow or escape the inevitable.
In a moment’s time, I decided, “Well, nothing I can do now. It is what it is.” I do not know if I shared this revelation with Carmen aloud or not.
I removed my hands from the steering wheel and held them up in ultimate surrender to the forces that be - that or in an instinctive position to brace for impact - and witnessed in silence the milliseconds that passed between me and the blinking semi. Time really does slow down. I closed my eyes. I felt at ease.
Just as we were about to collide, my steering wheel jerked to the left, jolting my eyes open and making Carmen scream. It jerked back to the right, straightening out again before I realized I magically had enough road in front of me to decrease my speed and safely shift my car into a now clear lane.
The rain let up. Sunshine broke through. The windows fogged, whether from atmospheric temperature differentials or our perspiration, I don’t know. After some time, Carmen and I arrived back into our bodies. We looked at one another and erupted into brazen laughter. Praised God for only what He could do.
The second time I thought I was going to die I was also in my car.
This time, five years later, I was newly 25 and on my way to a job I didn’t like. It was cold, bone-chilling cold, as it usually is mid-January in northern Illinois.
I hadn’t gotten over my fear of driving on the interstate yet, only drowned it out with louder and louder music - non-Christian this time - and an even greater need to travel* (*commute) 20 miles everyday to keep my 9-5. But on this particular day, the sun was shining, it wasn’t snowing, and I felt calm.
About 2.5 miles into my drive, I approached a turn in the road I never particularly enjoyed due to its sharp nature and relatively abrupt appearance. Every time I had to drive this specific stretch of highway, I reduced my speed and gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.
As I rounded the corner, squinting into the white sun while fantasizing about the coffee I was going to make with the one tablespoon of cream I allowed myself each day once I got into the office, my wheels started to feel different. Rather than grabbing onto the natural bumps and texture of the salty asphalt as they always have, I realized they had begun to glide.
Immediately, I sensed I was in a more precarious situation now than when I was in Kansas - which I thought of in this moment - because this time I knew I was on ice, and ice was harder to control than water. I also had been blasting trap music all morning - not worship ballads - and I was alone. No glory. No Carmen.
My car slowly, but steadily, embarked on a sideways drift. I began to panic. I had no idea if other cars were around. No idea if anyone else was witnessing this moment. I did all the things I could remember to do: tap, slam, accelerate, lean in, throw hands up and hope for the best. Nothing worked. My car had become nearly perpendicular to the road, twisting and turning like a rogue ice skater improvising her routine.
The sharpest part of the curve was quickly approaching. I was running out of room. The shoulders narrowed. A bridge was about to appear. It was at this moment a familiar sensation came over me. Time slowed. I realized what was happening. I wasn’t going to get out of this. I thought to myself, “So this is how it’s gunna end, huh? Alright. I’m okay with it.” Resolve settled in as I fixed my eyes on the road and watched the retaining wall inch closer and closer to me and my hurtling car.
But then, it happened again. My steering wheel jerked to the left, and to the right, and back to the left again in rapid succession. My engine decelerated and my wheels straightened out. The ground turned back into asphalt.
In shock, I snapped out of my pre-death meditative state and regained control of the car. “What in the actual fuck just happened?” I questioned myself as I drove the rest of my commute by twitchy muscle memory alone.
The third time I thought I was going to die was not in a car; it was on a mountain.
I had been hiking throughout northern Colorado with a friend when we decided to take a trip to the Rocky Mountain National Park. Having gone before, I knew we needed to start our day early enough to get into the park, up the mountain, and safely back to the trailhead before dusk arrived and temperatures fell, as they often do mid-July 11,000 feet up in the Rockies.
We did not start our day early. We were not prepared. We didn’t have enough water, and I don’t know if we even brought actual food, but our outfits were cute. So there was that.
It turns out none of this actually mattered, at least in the course of my near-death experience that day. My friend also had her own, arguably more serious, near-death experience while on this particular hiking trip - directly related to our lack of preparation and sneaky summer mountain hypothermia (who’d of thought?) - but that’s a different story.
After 4.5 hours of hiking in the hot sun, we reached our initial destination. We were exhausted; it hadn’t been an easy trip. We sprawled out among jagged rocks and overlooked a glacial lake, digging blistered toes into grainy sand as we reflected on our accomplishment and shared peanut M&Ms.
It was getting late. Less and less people occupied the trail with us. It was time to turn back and begin our journey down the mountain. Only we didn’t. Because that mystical, mysterious, magical thing* that happens to people who sit in majestic, thin mountainous air for too long happened to us: we got a second wind. (*Dehydration / lactic acid overload / altitude sickness / adrenaline fog). Either way.
Instead of going down, we packed up our stuff, turned toward the right and continued up the trail to the next destination - well over three miles away. We encountered beautiful pockets of wildflowers, a herd of elk, and glorious waterfalls. Not thirst nor exhaustion, pain nor common sense could stop us now. We were entranced.
Eventually, we reached the last leg of the hike; the summit was in view. All that separated us from exaltation was a half-mile switchback, and a short, but entirely vertical, section of water-logged rocks guarding the base of Sky Pond.
My friend, an experienced rock climber, scrambled up the switchback in record time making me stop every few minutes to take a picture of her in the clouds that had begun to descend all around us. I followed closely behind, proud of myself for keeping up with not only her energy, but her skill and confidence as well.
This, of course, was until we reached the vertical rock wall. Surveying my surroundings, I realized we had to scale a waterfall - quite literally - in order to reach the top.
I watched her head out before me. She was steady - meticulous and light in her hand and foot placements, agile and quick in her speed. Before long she had made it to the top. “It’s stunning!” she proclaimed.
Determined to see for myself, I began my ascent. I placed my hand on a slick rock and lifted my foot in an attempt to follow the path she had just blazed moments before. I was doing okay - going slow, but handling it. She called down from above to inform me that she was going to walk around and explore the base just a bit, but that she’d be right there if I needed her. Just yell.
To which I protested, “Absolutely not! Do not leave me here! I don’t know what I am doing!” She assured me I would be fine, turned her back, and disappeared. I took a moment to collect myself and considered just stopping then and there, but I had come so far. I called out her name. She didn’t answer. “Fine,” I resolved. “I’ll go up and see for myself.”
Just as I was about to take my next step, it’s as if I realized for the first time that I was clinging to the side of a mountain, completely vertical, alone, wet, and wholly inexperienced. My heart began to race. The saliva in my mouth dried out. My temples started to sweat. Ignoring my body’s attempts to keep me safe, I repositioned and reached for another step anyway. It was the wrong step. I lost my footing and slid about six inches down. I called her name again. Maybe I really couldn’t do this. She didn’t answer.
Exasperated, but with no other option, I stuck to the side of the mountain like a press-on decorative sticker clinging to a sliding glass door. Two minutes passed. I had to do something. I had to make a decision. I found a solid foothold and focused on my breathing, surprised that my body knew how to innately self-regulate considering that in the past I could have never been bothered by ‘slowing down and taking a breath.’ After another minute or so, I had harnessed enough strength (mostly mental) and decided to carry on.
But then I made the error of all errors. That thing they say to never do: I looked down. And not only did I look down, I looked down, behind, up, and all around. Up until that point, I was unaware that I was afraid of heights. I was also unaware that I was claustrophobic. What an interesting experience it was to realize that I was indeed both - at the same time - while scaling a waterfall at dusk, with no experience, alone, at nearly 11,000 feet.
What little saliva I had left, completely dissipated. My throat tightened and my heart began to thump heavy, laborious beats. My ears started to ring and I got tunnel vision. To my dismay, I began to lose the feeling in my fingers and my toes, and noticed the strength funneling out of my limbs. Dizzy, disorientated, and unable to see, I realized it was highly likely I was going to fall.
I looked down again and stared at the rocks, briefly considering the steepness of the hill I was about to meet with my body. I gazed up at the summit, catatonically amused at how close I had gotten. “Of course,” I remember thinking to myself. Oddly, I wasn’t concerned about the pain.
Then, like clockwork, that feeling returned. A certain, steady calmness washed over me as I accepted that this was how I was going to die. In that moment, panic turned to peace. I had never felt so fulfilled. So okay. So alive. I wasn’t thinking of past nor future, just the reality that in the present I was about to let go and fall and know that everything was going to be fine.
As I crouched into the mountain suspended by what felt like an alternate reality and waited for my inevitable fall, my friend’s voice suddenly pierced through the air shocking my consciousness back into my body like the jolt of a defibrillator to the heart of a cardiac patient. I took a massive, gaping inhalation as my senses returned and realized what was going on. I could make out her muffled cheers from the distance, telling me how close I was to finishing, urging me to keep going, promising how accomplished I’d feel once I got to the top.
My body regained equilibrium. Stair-like rocks seemed to appear out of nowhere. As soon as I was able, I turned to find her voice, and simply shook my head no. I unplastered my hand from the rock that saved my life, and began to make my way back down the mountain on a newly illuminated path. I didn’t need to see the pond that bad.