What surviving a fatal car accident taught me about death, life, & impermanence

Human life is so absolutely fragile that, in a strange, roundabout way, I feel more protected than ever and more inclined to be present in the time I do have.

Three years ago was the first time I witnessed death.

I was supposed to fly back to Vancouver from New York when a snowstorm shut everything down. My flight was rescheduled for the next day. That evening, I sobbed myself to sleep. There was enormous grief, and I had no idea why. At this point in my life, I had experienced precognition in dreams, but had yet to experience pre-event emotional processing. So, that evening, I allowed myself to feel the strange emotions, but was completely lost for the “why.”

The next day, on the way to the airport, we were rear-ended by an intoxicated and unconscious driver at 99 MPH on the highway. When it happened, there was a stillness so intense that it seemed to engulf the violent destruction. Time expanded in a way I have only experienced once. I was completely calm, yet the speed of my processing was so fast that it made everything happen quite slowly. It nearly wiped out my entire close family, but my dad, through grace and response, was able to hold enough control of the car that we were spared.

After all of that—after such a massive crash, literally a car rear-ending and flipping off ours—the individual who struck us was okay. A Good Samaritan pulled over and helped them out of the car. Then, suddenly, just moments later, a box truck in the pitch dark, not expecting people to be standing in the middle of the highway, ran them over. They were dead and dematerialized instantly.