A recent retold story of a tragedy in the media
rekindled a repeated reflection that would prey upon the Pilgrim.
“Sometimes we are witnesses to or part of incidents that change us forever”
There was that day when a crash so loud occurred
It had had pounded his heart and chest.
A bang so fierce that when he sits in silence today,
The smell of the burning gasoline and its smoke
that filled his then innocent senses are as clear as the moment it happened.
Turning and running to the source of the sound and billowing smoke
a vision of twisted metal crunched and broken,
A car, a taxi-cab he recalled, upside down or just mangled
in a way that no human could imagine undoing .
A voice weeping from inside the pile of twisted disfigured steel
calls out desperately “ Help me ! Help me!”
A slight flame flares to heaven
frightening away the witnesses
and potential good Samaritans as a small stream of blood
converged with a dripping puddle of leaking oil.
The mission focused super hero first responders
appeared in a blink of an eye.
Barricades placed , sheets hung around the scene to block
the view of the gathering onlookers.
Some prayers were heard, a Lord’s Prayer he recalled.
An ambulance solemnly backed into the scene
and just like that it whisked away .
Silence.
The crowd was dispersed and reverent whispers
asked and commented - “ Is He alright?” And “How Tragic.”
The pilgrim would never know if the man survived
and what was left was a prayer for the driver and his family.
Sometimes over the years there would be unanticipated occasions
when the pilgrim would get lost in his busyness
while preparing to get to some place that
may or may not be important in the grand scheme of things.
He would recall a number of preoccupied days where he was late in departing
to his destination and while on the road suddenly without warning
he would become aware of an auto accident right in his pathway that may be not as fierce as the one witnessed years ago,
but he would ponder, “ What if I left when I had planned?”
The story that conjured this stream of thought again
centered around a another major accident where a mother and two children
were smashed into a precarious overhang on a highway on the brink of falling to their death.
The first responders professional , diligent and careful but nothing seemed to be able to
stop the crushed car from potentially falling off the highway bridge before they could extract the victims inside the all to familiar twisted mangled vehicle. Time and options had just about run out. Then it happened.
A small group of Seabees who were late in returning from military exercises and were stuck in the traffic caused by the accident. They were transporting an unusual fork lift vehicle that could bend and angle itself and have the ability to lift all types of heavy military vehicles and such.They offered their assistance and as a last resort the first responders had the monstrous fork lift brought into place. The wreckage was lifted. The victims with multiple injuries were extracted including a baby who slept through the incident. They all survived.The mother, driver, in the vehicle recently said how everything was an unexplainable coincidence and maybe in some ways a miracle.
Somehow that peculiar spark of awareness burned within the Pilgrim’s memory banks recalling how there were multiple times when life happened not in a way that he intended ;accidents, tragedies , unexpected events and encounters and the outcomes somehow always hinted at a greater hand and intention seems to be at play .
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You Can have other words- chance, luck,coincidence,serendipity.I'll take
grace. I don't know what it is exactly, but I'll take it"
-Mary Oliver
Wreck on the Highway - Bruce Springsteen
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Crawlin from The Wreckage - D. Edmunds
Any Road - G. Harrison
Amdg
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