“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” ~Albert Camus
A little over a year ago, I went to a bookstore on a cold night to meet a friend at the café. It’s taken me this long to finally write about it.
We had one of those conversations you need when you’re trying to make sense of things during the busy rush of life. The kind of conversation that makes you feel like you’re in the right place at the right time and you’re making progress.
I left the bookstore feeling like I was a little bit closer to being on the right track in life, got into my car, and started driving home. I was thinking about the conversation, feeling grateful.
Then I stopped at a traffic light on one of the major roads. I looked into my rear-view mirror and saw a car coming toward me at full speed. In an instant, I realized the driver wasn’t slowing down.
There wasn’t time to think. I braced myself for the impact.
I watched him try to swerve, but he couldn’t avoid me. He struck the left taillight of my car with such force that I don’t remember what happened in the few seconds afterward.
The next thing I can recall is being on the side of the intersection, apparently having rolled several hundred feet from where I’d been waiting at the light. I was disoriented and trying to figure out where I was.
The police arrived and asked some basic questions about what had happened. When I tried to answer, all I could do was stutter.
I couldn’t get the words out. I kept repeating myself. A paramedic told me I was in shock.
Being in shock is a strange experience. Your mind is working to comprehend the situation while your body is still freaking out.
I called my wife, and she came to get me. We found out that the person who hit me had fled the scene and had struck several other cars as he escaped.
Several of us were standing in the median with flashing police lights surrounding us. We all started talking, and I learned that one of the women was celebrating her birthday.
I remember looking across the street and seeing a bakery. I thought about going over and getting her a cake. That would’ve been perfect.
We were standing in the middle of a major intersection after a violent collision, surrounded by damaged cars and flashing lights, and still could’ve had cake!
I wanted to celebrate the fact that she was still here. That we all had survived this experience and could still make something good from it.
I’d love to say we had a wonderful time on the side of the road eating cake together, but it never happened. We walked to the bakery, and it was closed.
Standing there on the grass between traffic lanes, looking at that closed shop, something shifted in me. The strange tenderness of wanting to buy a stranger a cake in the middle of a crash site felt just as real as the collision itself.
I like to imagine that life is more predictable than it is. We make plans, build careers, raise children, fall in love, save money, make appointments, go to bookstores, sit at traffic lights, and assume the next moment will resemble the one we’re currently experiencing.
Most of the time, it does.
But sometimes a car comes barreling through a red light. Sometimes a phone rings with news we never expected. Sometimes someone we love gets sick.
Relationships change. Jobs that once felt secure become uncertain. The future we imagined disappears and leaves us standing in a place we never intended to be.
The difficulty I’ve found is that we can’t shield ourselves completely from any of it. That realization can make us afraid. It can also make us awake.
I’m starting to understand that maybe the question isn’t how we can make life safe enough that nothing terrible will ever happen. Maybe it’s more like focusing on the kind of person we want to be while we are here—the choices we make, the way we love, and the way we respond when life doesn’t go the way we had hoped.
I’ve spent decades searching for answers because I want to understand how a human being can live with uncertainty without becoming consumed by it.
I’ve learned that I can’t control everything that happens to me. But I can become more present to what is happening.
I can notice my fear without becoming identified with it. I can embrace my longing for approval without allowing it to determine my actions. I can face the places where I feel empty inside and become curious about them instead of trying to fill them right away.
Right now, I’m writing this essay at a park with my bare feet on the grass. The breeze is cool on my skin, and I hear children laughing on the playground.
I’m breathing. I’m here. I’m alive.
Somewhere, someone is sitting at a red light without giving a second thought to what might happen next.
Being awake means knowing that this moment is not guaranteed and choosing to enter it anyway. It means doing the work that feels like ours to do and loving people even though we can’t keep them forever.
I’m also discovering how important it is, for me at least, to tell the story.
When I share my life’s stories, I don’t know exactly who will read it.
You might be struggling with your own uncertainty. You might be someone who has experienced something much more frightening. You might be sitting at a crossroads in your own life, wondering who you really are and whether there is still time to become that person.
Maybe you’re carrying something nobody else can see; I don’t know. But, when I tell you my story, something beautiful happens. For a moment, I’m not alone in my experience, and I hope that as you read, you’re not alone in yours.
We can’t prevent every collision or know what’s coming through the next intersection. And there’s no guarantee that the bakery will be open when we need a birthday cake.
But we can stand together in the median for a while. We can look at one another and say, “We’re still here.”
That’s enough to make us stop, breathe, and realize what an extraordinary thing it is to be alive.
About Daniel H. Shapiro
Dr. Daniel H. Shapiro is keynote speaker, author, and mentor. He is passionate about human connection and the stories we carry with us. For more information about his book, The 5 Practices of the Caring Mentor, or his mentoring and speaking services, check out mentoringwithcare.com.
