Death. It is a topic people try to avoid because it seems either too far away or too close. But one thing we can say is that most of us don’t fear death, instead we fear dying. Suffering, feeling pain, none of us want to feel that, which is why we don’t talk about it.
Three years ago, my family was forced to think about it - death, I mean. We couldn’t predict anything bad would happen, but it did. It happened to my mother. One Saturday morning my mother was driving on the Costa Verde when she reached a curve at the same time as another car coming the opposite direction. She immediately steered the car off the cliff, falling 20 meters onto the road below. Still conscious, she was stuck in her car and unable to get out, considering her condition at the time. People driving by stopped their cars and tried breaking the windows with whatever they could find. Finally my mom was taken out, right at the time the ambulance arrived. Her location was 20 minutes away from the nearest hospital. Twenty minutes. This is what pains me the most when I think about the accident. My mom was conscious and alone, sitting in an ambulance full of strangers for 1, 200 seconds after falling off a 20 meter cliff. She was ordered to have a CAT scan on her brain as soon as possible. I had slept over a friend’s house the previous night so I was not there right before she went into surgery, but my dad and my older sister were. I can’t talk too much about it to my father because he gets too sad and my sister doesn’t speak much about it either; the only thing she told me is that she wished she hadn’t seen my mother like that. After 8 hours in surgery, they were able to save my mom’s life. In the past, this is what shocked me most. “They saved my mom’s life”. The thought of losing my mom was unimaginable. I had heard stories all the time about tragedies and accidents that had happened to other people. But I had never had to live it. I had never been in a moment where someone so close to me was on the verge of living or dying. And after experiencing it, I decided that no one, no matter how bad that person is, should ever have to go through something like that. To be honest, I knew there would come a day where I would tell this story in a blog post; it was just a matter of time I was ready to tell it. Today is the anniversary of the day of my mom’s car accident. If I told you this all happened for a reason, would you believe me? For some reason I can’t seem to understand, until this day, the miracle that took place during the accident. Dr. Heeren, my mother’s doctor, told my family that anybody that fell from that height and landed like my mom did, should have died - scientifically speaking. Why did my mom survive? Out of the million accidents that happen year round, and out of all the people that died, why did my mom live? It continues being a mystery to me and my family but not a day has gone by that I am not thankful for this miracle. Death has its ways of surprising us at the most unexpected times, so don’t try to prepare yourself for when it does, because that would be impossible. My mom is able to see life now as the most precious gift ever, and she tries her best to live to the fullest everyday. Let death be the one to take you away, in the meantime, let yourself be the one to take control and enjoy what life has to offer.
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June 2016
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