...where in the next instant he collided with an oncoming car. The twisted, now vacant bike clattered down the street before scraping to a standstill. The dented car pulled toward the curb. And the body lay crumpled and motionless on the pavement.
It sounds so trite, so predictable to say, “It happened so fast.” But, indeed, it happened so fast. In an instant. One moment his face was peering toward our own, and quite literally the next moment it was staring unblinkingly into asphalt.
We pulled to a stop in an adjacent parking lot. We called 911. Others by now were out of their cars, cell phones in hand, dialing the same three digits. Eventually we exhaled the breath we hadn’t even known we were holding. After a time we reentered the traffic and continued our way home, swallowing as if that could help us digest what we had just witnessed. Together we rehearsed the scenes - rewinding and replaying those silent but deafening moments, over and over again; frame by slow-motion frame - the zipping weave, the pass on the left, the look behind, the cell phone in the pocket, the...
...the stillness...
...the “what ifs.” What if he had been wearing a helmet? Would it have been any benefit? What if he had stayed in his lane? What if he had kept looking forward? What if the car had seen him coming? What if he had seen the car? What if the light at the previous intersection had turned red a second earlier?
What if...
In a single moment, a choice you make, a choice made by others, the rhythmic timing of the lights and the sunset and feet on accelerators and a carefree, windswept grin all converge in a sudden terrible, twisting, silencing stop. And whatever was will be no more, and whatever might have been will never be.
As the old song observes, “it’s funny how time slips away.” And it’s true. In that instant, the lovely and celebrative dinner from which we were returning home seemed already hours ago, and the road ahead and the home that awaited us hours and miles ahead. There was only that moment, replayed over and over again. And the questions asked without answer. And this one particular life - someone’s son, perhaps someone’s brother, perhaps someone’s lover, certainly someone’s friend - brought, in an instant, to an end.
The scene looped through my sleep. And as I slipped again behind the wheel this morning and started the ignition for a trip into town, this ordinary excursion that I have conducted a thousand times before feels qualitatively different; holy even. With hands on the wheel, eyes straight ahead, I resolve to pay a different kind of reverential attention;
to see;
to behold;
to treasure this slipping away moment;
On my behalf,
On our behalf.
And his.
