One of the interesting facts that you do not know about me is that I have personally met the dark angel; Lucifer.
It was 1984 and I did not just meet Lucifer once. I met her daily in my Afrikaans classroom. Satan stood in front of the class disguised as Mrs Pienaar. Every day, she terrified us while teaching the odd language rule and obsessing over handwriting.
I clearly remember how this princess of darkness always told us that if we write an essay we must not have a weak start. So, if for instance, you had to write about your pet, you should not spend the first four paragraphs writing about its collar, its drinking bowl, or its flea powder. If you write about a holiday, don’t spend too much time writing about the road trip there, but rather focus on the vacation itself.
But today, with all respect for this fallen angel, Mrs Pienaar, I am going to have to write about a road trip instead of a holiday. Simply because I did not know how quickly an ordinary journey could become something else entirely.
You see, today’s “essay” is about the journey and not the destination – as so much of life is. (I apologise, Mrs. Pienaar. Please do not zap me with a lightning bolt).
My longsuffering husband and I decided to drive to the West Coast. We have a great arrangement: he drives, I sleep. Just past Bloemfontein, I was surprisingly awake as we had stopped for the customary Wimpy burger a few minutes earlier. I was ready to get tucked back into my fetal position, but just before I managed to put my seat down, my husband spewed some rather expressive profanities.
I looked up and saw a twin-cab Hilux fly through the air and summersault three times. It went over the next lane and over a farm fence landing on its roof in the bushes. It was totally surreal. The vehicle was so deep in the bush that it was hardly visible from the road.
We stopped immediately and after taking my road-side-assistance-emergency bag I ran across the road. Another car, on the opposite side of the road, also stopped. The flying Hilux had missed them by a hair and very, very nearly crushed their Picanto.
With great effort, I got over the fence while my husband called the emergency services. The bakkie was on its roof, strangely tangled in the thorn trees and bushes. It was almost like a macabre holiday scene with the Christmas tree decorated with everyday items which had fallen from the car. It was eerily draped with handbags, phone charges, blankets, shoes, packets of chips, a broken windscreen and wigs.
I struggled through the thorns to get to the car where I could see two women covered in blood. I thought of how all the items in the car, part of a joyful journey, were now a reminder of how your life can change in an instant. On any other day, the random debris in the trees would have meant nothing. Suddenly they felt sinister – proof that five minutes ago these women were just laughing, snacking and planning the next stop.
My heart was hammering in my chest. The driver was lying outside the car where she was thrown into thorny bushes. I suspect she came through the windscreen. Her face was covered with blood but she was orientated and able to speak to me. Crushed underneath the vehicle was an older woman. The bakkie was pinning her from the waist down. She was swimming in and out of consciousness, but when she was lucid she screamed and cried. I was unable to communicate with her at all.
I saw another person’s leg sticking out precariously from a broken window, and another quiet body in the mangled cab.
Throughout the time we spent on the roadside, I was never able to even hold a hand or whisper assurances to these scared people as the bushes made it impossible to get to them. Three ambulances and two fire trucks arrived as first responders and I just marvelled at their competence and admired the calm, skilled rescuers tackling the enormous task ahead of them.
I picked up two cell phones and managed to get them to the driver, hoping that she could at least inform their families. After an hour and a half, the driver was finally in an ambulance and the teams could start rescuing the other three people.
I’m not sure what happened after we left. I just know that within seconds four lives and all those who love/d them were irrevocably changed. Maybe I was changed too.
I see all the time how a single occurrence or accident or diagnosis can change your life forever. To actually experience one of those moments cements this knowledge into your soul.
We usually see the aftermath of ‘the moment everything changed’- the moment that becomes the one that defines the “before” and “after”. We are there in the chapters after the dust has settled, the trauma has shattered a life, or the acute intervention is completed. We get to meet you later on in the story, when the damage is done and the hurt is very real in the “trying to figure out the after” stage.
It was strange for me to experience the early chapter of someone’s disaster story. Driving away from the horror scene, I realised how ordinary the “before” must be for everyone. Here was this group of four people, proudly driving a fancy new four by four a few minutes earlier. They were probably chatting, scrolling through their WhatsApps, arguing whose playlist to listen to, and sharing a bag of chips. There was no warning. There was no unsettling music alerting them that life as they knew it was about to change and no signal from above… just a straight stretch of road through the Free State on an average autumn day.
And then suddenly there were handbags hanging from thorn trees, wheels spinning in the air and strangers crawling through bushes trying to reach broken bodies.
Our lives are frighteningly fragile (maybe more so here in South Africa?) and yet we carry on as if our futures are written in stone. We easily say, “next week,” “next year” and “when I retire”
I wonder if this is another reason moments like this exist. Of course it reminds us of tragedy and death, but it also forces us to remember that we live RIGHT NOW; not later, or tomorrow, or when we get our degree, or when we find the right spouse, or when we lose weight or when we get promoted.
Right now.
I so often forget that life is brittle, and it can easily be cracked, crushed or shattered. Why does it take life hanging in bits and pieces in thorn trees to remember that this one and only precious life of ours is worth living to the full each day?
Our traumatic roadside experience also reminded me why it is so crucial for us to do what we do and have this gentle space for when our guests begin their “after” chapter, whether it is to recover, receive respite or to write the final paragraphs of their lives. The first part of our patients’ journeys, before we meet them, are without a doubt cruel and exhausting. This is why we will never forget to make the rest of the story kind, tender and gentle.
Apparently Mrs. Pienaar is still taking up a lot of space in my head, so maybe she was less evil and a more talented teacher than I initially thought. She did teach me to love writing, but she was wrong about some things. Often, life happens on the journey and you don’t always even get to reach the destination.