In August, we bring a set of new full-time writers to the blog. Please welcome Natasha (Strydhorst) Unsworth (‘16), who will be writing on the 25th of each month. Natasha is a science communication researcher and practitioner working on her Ph.D. at Texas Tech University. Natasha hails from Calgary, Alberta. Some of her favo(u)rite authors are C. S. Lewis, Francis Collins, and Bill Bryson. Her favourite earthly place is the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and her favourite activities are reading and enjoying the great outdoors—preferably simultaneously.
If there were an adult scout badge system, there would be a badge for your first car crash. Not that you’re not an adult until you’ve had one, but adulthood seems a necessity for managing the aftermath. I experienced my first 11 months ago. Strangely, my impression of the collision was of silence. Neither my husband nor I yelled. He, presumably, because his whole being was fixated on slamming the brakes. He reacted so fast—but only God could have moved fast enough to avert the inevitable. For my part, I didn’t make a sound because it seemed unreal. I’ve used the word surreal a great deal—but that was the only time I felt it. I’d thought 2016’s election night was surreal—this was more so.
I was struck dumb by perceived unreality: surely no one would cross four lanes of seventy mph highway traffic sans confirmation the coast was clear—that goes against logic, (un)common sense, and the Moral Law all at once. Such things don’t happen, surely.
But this did.
The front third of our Kinetic Death Trap™ crumpled like bargain tin foil against the middle third of hers; the two sashaying in a macabre dance to the side of the road, meters shy of a nondescript Burger King. I extricated myself with difficulty, the glove box having burst asunder against my knees. John-Mark clambered over the console and out my door, his fused shut by puckered metal. Then he helped the disoriented other driver out of her clobbered vehicle. Blood trickled from her temple; a shard of an erstwhile window had struck her head when our car struck hers.
The police arrived, and the salvage crew. I learned salvage yards take ownership of your car and all its contents when they pry its mangled corpse off the asphalt. As ours contained most of our worldly possessions, we were most relieved the yard relaxed this rule. A kindly bystander brought me to retrieve said possessions while John-Mark visited the hospital. Eleven months in, we’re still getting bills from the recalcitrant United HealthCare, John-Mark’s ostensible health insurer. As for our vehicle’s insurance, it didn’t cover a penny because the collision wasn’t our fault—and the (ir)responsible party didn’t have insurance. The police tell us “it’s a coin flip” whether any Mississippi motorist does.
The pain took hours to reach its zenith, weeks to ebb. We sported cross-body bruises long after the seatbelts that rendered them were presumably hacked out and raffled off. I still flinch when I see a vehicle on a perpendicular road approaching at what seems a frightful speed. I’m re-learning tranquility.
Perhaps the most poignant thing I learned, though, was that we got to move on. Our nerves and bank account were frayed, but they’re mending. We walked away nearly unscathed. The poor woman who destroyed our car and ruined our day, though, is presumably stuck in Mississippi with insurers breathing down her neck, her car destroyed, and her license suspended. I wasn’t sorry about that last bit. People who are such a hazard on the road shouldn’t be allowed to drive on it. Even so, I pity her. She may retain a scar on her temple, many months since our bruises faded. I know her name from the police report and her face from the afterimage burned on my mind’s retina, but not her story—not by half. All I know of her life are the split seconds that brought her caroming across our path.
The police report assigns blame in such black-and-white terms: “V-1 proceeded east crossing the left northbound lane as V-2 was passing.” I wouldn’t be surprised to learn God’s ledger reads differently. Who’s to say I wouldn’t do as she did, given her life instead of mine? Who knows but that she had too much of one calamity on her heavy-laden mind to avert another? The moral equation is, on this mortal plane, incalculable. Little wonder we are called not to judge—human knowledge is laughably limited for that. C. S. Lewis—as always—puts it most eloquently:
If you are a poor creature—poisoned by a wretched upbringing… nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends—do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. [If you have no insurance, perhaps, consider using a bike instead.] One day (perhaps in another world but perhaps far sooner than that) He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all—not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school. (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be last). —Mere Christianity, 215
I’d do well to remember that—a tangible reminder (adult scout badge?) would, perhaps, help.
Natasha (Strydhorst) Unsworth (‘16) is a science communication researcher and practitioner working on her Ph.D. at Texas Tech University. Natasha hails from Calgary, Alberta. Some of her favo(u)rite authors are C. S. Lewis, Francis Collins, and Bill Bryson. Her favourite earthly place is the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and her favourite activities are reading and enjoying the great outdoors—preferably simultaneously.
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“Recalcitrant”—what a gentle word for all of our ostensible insurers. Welcome to tpc, Natasha, and thanks for this lovely post!