Unabashed

I don’t know her name, and she doesn’t know mine. But just the same, she will never forget me–I’m the guy who held her hand, who gave her a tissue, who brushed the glass shards off her shoulders, out of her hair. I asked her if she was okay, and then I waited with her, until the paramedics arrived. I’ll never forget her because I was there at the intersection when that big freight truck decided not to stop. I was there when it hit her broadside, when there was nothing she could do to avoid the horrible collision, and I was there when she plowed into the tree. I saw the fear in her eyes, and you don’t forget fear like that. We may not know one another’s names, but we are nonetheless connected, inexorably, for time immemorial. The truck had hit right behind the driver’s-side door, shattering every window in the car except the one right by her left ear. I leaned in behind her and asked if she was okay, and when she didn’t move for several long seconds I was terrified that she was already gone. But I heard her mumble. I tried to open her door but it was jammed shut by twisted metal. Still, I thought the damage was farther back, that the mechanism might not be too far gone, and I knew that if I couldn’t get the door open right then she’d have to sit there, covered in glass, terrified, until the fire department came to cut her out. But I got it open, with a shriek the metal let go, and I took her hand in mine.

“Are you hurt?” I asked her.

“I don’t think so,” she said, utterly in shock.

“Do you want to get out?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Can I use your phone?” she asked with a trembling, uneasy voice, rising on trembling, uneasy legs.

I dialed the number for her. And then she wept. Of course she would, I would have, too.

Her husband arrived before the paramedics or the police. She’d held it together very well, and that’s something else I will always remember. The other thing I will never forget is the way her husband held out his hand to me–he was wide-eyed and full of nerves too, by then. He gripped my hand and shook it with both of his, never saying a word, but not needing to, either. I couldn’t say anything myself at that point. I don’t think there’s anything I could have said at that point, anyway, that would make any difference. I had done all I could do, and he knew it. And for his part, he gave all the thanks he needed to when he took my hand. He told me, without speaking, that one day, if something happened to me or someone I love and he was there, that he would do the same for me as I’d just done for him. Sometimes the best we can do is try to be comforting, soothing, offer a tissue and a kind word and hope nothing is broken.

One day, maybe he’ll come upon a wreck or an accident. Maybe he’ll remember that day that someone held his wife’s hand and patted her shoulder and told her it would be okay. He will do the same for them. We are in this together forevermore, me and him (and her), tethered by a string of karma.

And I don’t know his name, and he doesn’t know mine. But we’ll neither one of us ever forget the other, and we won’t ever forget this day, when something could have gone so, so wrong, but thankfully, didn’t.

written by Matt Mitchell