"I got into a car accident..."
The words hit me like lightning before they even fully registered. It was 6 AM, and my twenty-four-year-old son never called at 6 AM. I was on my way to teach that morning at a farther location than usual - hadn't even arrived yet -when my phone rang. My pulse was so loud I could barely hear myself think. Something was wrong.
"Are you okay?" "What happened?" "Do you need me to come?" The questions tumble out before I can stop them. I finally take the breath I didn't know I was holding.
His voice was staccato and shaky, his words stumbled over each other as his brain tried to catch up with what just happened.
"The driver came out of nowhere. Got in my lane. I'm fine, though. I don't know how, but I am..."
I don't know how... Everything else he said after that was just noise. I needed to get to him. I needed to be with my baby to make sure he was okay.
I hung up the phone and immediately called my co-facilitator to see if she'd cover for me. Then I pulled my truck over to breathe and collect myself.
My hands shook as I sat there on the side of the road and let the reality of it all sink in. The math was brutal: he lived four hours away from us already, and I was two and a half hours in the wrong direction, which means I was now six and a half hours from my son, who just survived what sounded like a horrific accident..
I had to get to him. I turned my car around and started the drive back home to get clothes and make arrangements with my spouse, then I hit the road to his house.
I queued up my meditative, spiritual playlist. It was the only thing I could control in that moment. I knew that the soft and grounding music would help calm my nervous system. I needed something to keep me tethered, to remind me to breathe, and to make sure I stayed safe on the long drive to get to him.
Every mile felt like forever, and every minute felt like an eternity. I kept replaying that phone call, the way he said "accident." He didn't even know how he was okay...I needed to know he was okay!
On the drive, I thought about the post I shared just last week, Sacred Ordinary Mornings, and I ruminated on the terrible question that wouldn't leave me alone: What would I have done if he hadn't survived?
But he survived. I was on my way. I pushed the feelings aside and kept driving those endless miles. When I finally walked through his door, I could see he was still processing, still riding that strange edge where adrenaline meets disbelief.
We sat on his couch, and he showed me the photo. The breath leaves my lungs all at once when I see the wreckage. His SUV was completely destroyed, crumpled like paper. The driver's side caved in entirely; the windshield spider-webbed into a thousand fractured pieces. The metal twisted and torn where he was sitting, the wheel completely gone, and parts scattered across the pavement like discarded fragments of what used to be protection.
His side of the vehicle took the impact, the very space where his body should have been pulverized. Looking at the destruction, at the complete obliteration of steel and glass that surrounded him, it became crystal clear: he shouldn't be alive.
But he is alive. Somehow, impossibly, miraculously—he is. And I drove six and a half hours to sit beside this miracle. I will stay here for the next few days to monitor him, to watch for signs of hidden brain injury, to hold space for the slow processing of trauma. But right now, in this moment, I am just breathing in the fact that my son is sitting beside me, whole and safe and here.
This is another reminder of the sacredness of life. Of the importance of daily love. Daily. Life is chaotic. We live inside a fictional construct our brains have created, called "time," but time is an illusion. There is no yesterday. No tomorrow. There is right now, this breath, this heartbeat, this moment where my son is safe and whole and sitting beside me.
"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow," Lao Tzu taught us in the Tao Te Ching. Today, sitting in my son's living room, staring at the photo of what could have been his final moments, I understand what my Daoist teacher meant when he spoke of staying present even in the impossible moments, the ones that break your heart, that change everything, that make you question how the world can continue turning when such fundamental pieces of it almost leave.
I know I said it last week, but today I'm doubling down: Live in today. Love in today. Maybe today won't be your last—but it might be theirs. Make sure they know you love them. Make sure they know you'd drop everything and drive through your worst fears for six and a half hours just to sit beside them. Make sure they know you'd do anything for them.
The crash that could have taken my son didn't. But it reminded me that every phone call could be the phone call. Every goodbye could be the one that sticks. That doesn't mean we live in fear. It means we live with intention. It means we stop storing up our love for someday and spend it today, now, in this moment, that's the only one we're guaranteed.
My son is safe. And I'm here with him to process and to ensure he doesn't have any lasting effects from this horrific accident. And I'm learning once more that presence isn't just a spiritual practice—it's a love practice. It's the difference between saving our affection for the perfect moment and lavishing it on this imperfect, precious, terrifyingly fragile now.
Every parent knows they'd drive any distance for their child. But until you're actually making that drive, six and a half hours of highway stretching between you and the person you can't bear to lose, you don't know what that distance really means. It means love measured in miles. It means time as both the enemy and ally. It means arriving to discover that sometimes the longest journeys lead us right back to the simplest truth: this moment, right here, is all we ever really have.
What would you do differently if you knew today was your only day to love the people who matter most? And how far would you drive to prove it—six and a half hours? Six hundred fifty? As many as it takes?
What an amazing miracle from such a horrific accident. It was heart wrenching just reading this. I can only imagine what it was to experience. But you did so fully, fully equippedThe miracle of his survival and the ongoing miracle of mindfulness. The mindfulness from countless hours of cultivating spirit and understanding the depths and constancy of love. The lessons learned over and over that every moment is precious and to be held wholly/holy. Much love to you and your beloved.
I feel like you just gut-punched me (in the best possible way 😜). Thank you for sharing so vulnerably. No words explain the feeling that come from experiencing something like that. Gratitude for every second we have with those we love is the fire that burns away the heaviness of everything else.