Who Saved Us?: A Rip in Time and Space

Anxious to get to the University for class, I was driving too fast down five-lane south Belle Street. Staying in the inside lane with a black Mercedes in the outside lane traveling the same speed, we sped to our destinations. As the lady in the Mercedes put on her right-turn signal and began to slow down, I heard a voice from my back seat tell me to slow down.

I thought to myself, “I’m not turning. Why should I slow down?” Again, I was instructed to slow down. Who are you telling me how to drive, I questioned out loud seemly to myself. Not understanding why I should slow down, I dutifully lifted my foot from the accelerator. Slowing from fifty-miles-per-hour the front of my car is now even with the back wheel of the black Mercedes. Still focused on getting to the University, I noticed the Mercedes turned right, onto Matador, a residential street that sloped down lower than Belle Street. There was no way for me to see the small red Toyota truck that pulled out into our lanes to make a left turn as the Mercedes turned right onto Matador.

Seeing the shocked blue eyes of a young teenage boy just feet if not inches away from the hood of my car that was about to careen into the driver’s side of the truck, I pulled both legs up hitting the steering post as my arms flung across my face bracing me for impact. Wide-eyed, he also saw me for the first time. Instead of instant impact -- I felt my car lift and sway to the right, and then BAM, thud to the ground.

Thinking I must be dead, I brought my arms down from my face and looked at them. No blood! I expected to be covered in blood. Feeling dizzy I thought to myself, “This is not so bad, dying in a car wreck.” I looked up at the windshield – to my shock it was not broken. I leaned into the steering wheel while simultaneously lowering my feet to the floorboard, I examined the hood of my car. There was no broken windshield or crumpled hood. Hearing a hum, I realized my motor was still running and that I was alive. “What just happened, where did he go,” I gasped out loud. My car, going 50 miles per hour, was now stopped on the shoulder of Belle Street by Matador. No dust was filling the air. No skids marks were visible on Belle from breaking. I felt like I was in a capsule moving in slow motion. What has happened? How did this happen? Not happen? Where -- who is the man who told me to slow down. What? How? My mind seemed to lock down.

Suddenly I turned to my left and looked for the red truck. I turned to look over my left

shoulder to see the red truck sitting on the opposite shoulder of the five lanes; he was facing north. Neither car nor truck had been damaged. Realizing we never made any contact at all, my eyes darted from his truck back to my car expecting to see mangled metal, blood, and two dead bodies The driver was also looking at his up-held arms, then he leaned forward looking at his windshield and hood. He turned to his left searching for me. Our eyes met.

We both were reaching to open our car doors. I then heard an urgent voice command me, “Leave. Leave now. You cannot speak of this. Leave, leave now! Go. Go now!”

I quickly turned back to my right and noted my car was sitting just past the street the truck pulled out from. Checking again, I confirmed there were no skid marks anywhere. Glancing back at the young man in the truck, I could see his driver’s door begin to open. “Go. Go now!” I was told. I held up both of my hands, looking at them in disbelief, like a robot I placed them on the steering wheel. Without looking back for oncoming traffic, I put my foot on the gas pedal and pulled back onto Belle Street heading south towards the interstate and continued on to the university.

My mind was racing to account for what I had just experienced.

I knew that something, someone had intervened and prevented an inevitable car wreck. I knew that I was not to talk to the young man about what he had just experienced.

I knew if there had not been divine intervention that blue eyed young man and, possibly I would have died on Belle Street that morning. But it was not to be!

I knew I was not in control of my car after I removed my hands from the steering wheel and crossed my arms over my face for impact.

I knew I never put my foot on the brakes. –there was no time to avoid what was instantly thrust in front of me. There was no time; I did remember taking my foot off of the gas pedal and both my knees careened into the steering post underneath the steering wheel. I had instinctively tried to bring both legs up towards my chest, but they were blocked by the steering post.

I asked myself-- How can a car going almost fifty miles-per-hour immediately stop on the side of the road by the entrance of the street it is zooming past? How does a young man escape the front end of a car no more than five feet from his driver’s door, with his car going maybe five miles-per-hour pulling out from a side street, when the oncoming car is going almost fifty miles-per-hour?

The physics is not there for either driver to have saved the other! Who defied physics and ripped time and space? Why was I warned but not understand the warning? Why were we sparred?

Once I was safely parked in the university parking lot, tears of anger, fear, flowed down my face. I began to tremble. My entire body shook as I laid my head on the steering wheel. My frustration spewed forth as I cried out to the universe, “What am I supposed to do with this? What just happened? Why did this happen? Am I real? Am I dead on the street and haven’t realized it yet? Damnit all TELL ME! There was silence.

I did not go to class that day. I have no recollection of how long I sat crying in my car or how I drove home. I did know--whatever I had been born and agreed to live through, my purpose in life, had not come to pass so I could not go home that day! Luckily for the young man, he would not be sent home either. I was angry – If they, he can move time and space so that I am alive, what else can they do to me. Am I me? Am I really alive like other humans? What can happen to my daughters I wondered – I became afraid for them. What was to be next, I wondered. I needed to talk to my dear friend, Dr. Nan so bad, but he was deceased. Was his professional assessment of me, correct? Am I the sanest person he had ever met? I questioned and requestioned ever second of that rip in time until I was exhausted with my life, with being me. I had absolutely no one to share what had happened. I was told not to speak of this and I dutifully did as I was told. Talk about a soul-searching time in my life – this was it!

My opinion of these events -- I feel we do have free choice in our lives. Obviously, from my experiences I believe we have tasks we have come to fulfill. No matter how small or big we perceive those tasks from our earthly perspective, there obliviously can be divine intervention. I would like to also say this event is one that still haunts me. I have often wondered what happened to the young man in the red Toyota truck. Did he understand there was a rip in time and space or remember the wreck that didn’t happen or was his memory wiped clean of what had taken place. Time had been suspended, vehicles were repositioned, and the humans went untouched. Pretty impressive work by guardian angels!

At first, I would periodically ask myself, “How did you just drive away and function like nothing had happened. I didn’t. I did not do well at all for some time after this experience. All I would tell myself was that, “You know you are here for a reason.” My faith and trust in God never wavered. I just needed, no, I begged for more understanding not because of doubt, but for understanding. There was no doubting the event happened. There was a rip in time. This one was too big for me to just say, “Okay, wow, that was surreal, so what’s next.” Or to congratulate an angel on a great day’s work! Or least of all to ask, “Why me?”

Now you can ‘Talk About IT’

No human on this earth can make a dent in my faith in God. Even though a few close friends shamed me into writing about my life experiences with death. I dutifully did not mention the car wreck that didn’t happen due to a rip in time and space. As far as not talking about ‘it,’ – many years later I was about to send my manuscript to a publisher praying that it would go into a stack of unpublished stories. Before I put the manuscript in the mail I awoke one morning and before I opened my eyes the same voice that told me to slow down said, “You left out the car wreck that never happened.”

Jerking myself into an erect sitting position I yelled back, “YOU TOLD ME NOT TO SPEAK OF THIS.” Instant anger flooded me. Over ten years had passed since that day I lived through a rip in time and space -- of the wreck that did not happen, of knowing and living with the unknow effects to a blue-eyed young boy. Somehow, I had managed to tuck the entire experience deep down away from my consciousness and put one foot in front of the other continuing to go forward in life. Evidently the event was not as deeply buried as I had thought.

In response to my angry outburst, a gentle voice floated across my bedroom stating, “It is time.”