As the rain beats down on the windshield, I can only reflect on how long soccer practice seemed in the dismal weather. I'm exhausted mentally and physically from the rigors of my senior year of high school. I turn up my Oasis CD to keep myself going. Soon, however, I begin to feel the effects of overwhelming fatigue. As I approach a rural intersection five minutes from home, I remind myself to stay awake. A voice in the back of my head has a different message.
"Today could be the day you die," is its gentle reminder. As I let go of the brake pedal and cruise toward home, the music starts to fade. Michela was into Oasis, too.
"You and I are gonna live forever..."
My eyes pop open as I'm jolted awake by the collision between my Ford Explorer and a tree on the opposite side of the road. My head spins with thoughts. Then the important details begin to sink in. The dashboard is inches from my chest. My legs are caught underneath it. The car is filling up with fumes. I begin coughing.
I decide to make an escape. I unbuckle my seatbelt. My left leg comes up easily, but my right leg is caught. Gasping for air and panicking, I keep kicking my right leg, praying it will come free. Blood gushes as I finally get it loose. The door to my left won't open, so I crawl into the back seat and out the back door.
The paramedics arrive almost instantly and strap me to a board. When my mother gets there, they forbid her from seeing the car before she sees me. People do not emerge alive from cars like that, they say.
When the ambulance doors close there is silence. My attendant, I soon learn, used to go to a local rival school and calls my school a "school for pussies." In the corner of my eye I can glimpse him occasionally and remember my first impressions. Tall, lean, short hair ... an air of bitterness somewhere in between. I tell him that my foot really hurts. He tells me that my foot is OK, and that I am lucky to be alive.
I'm taken off the ambulance and placed on a cart. A crew of men and women rush me through a hallway into a square operating room. Doctors are scrambling around in a frenzy. I wonder why this has to happen — I feel fine.
Before I can make sense of it all, a doctor starts cutting off my clothes with a pair of scissors. My new outfit — a pink collared shirt and a pair of yellow khakis — is in shreds within seconds. Lying on the cart half-naked, a smile creeps along my face.
"Are you guys going to get naked too?"
Silence. They move on to my boxers.
"Whoa!"
"We need you completely naked," they assure me. The light beams down.
And suddenly I am naked in front of everyone, even the women. Shivering under the brightness, I am cold and embarrassed.
After what feels like an eternity of tests, I am carted away for X-rays. The nurse who brings me away tries to strike up a conversation, but all I can think about is Michela.
"I feel so dumb," I tell the nurse. "I had a friend who died like this just last month."
"I'm so sorry," she replies with no apparent feeling.
I am standing upright in a jacket and tie, looking straight ahead. My hands are clasped, a little wet from the light drizzle that just ended. I am in the front row of a crowd encircling Michela's grave. Even when I got the phone call that said she died, I thought it was a joke. Now that I am here, it all seems so real, too real even. I should be crying. I am so sad, but why won't the tears come? Her mother takes the shovel from the priest, but there is a pause in her action that brings about a gasp from multiple onlookers. She cannot bury her daughter. She looks down instead, purses her lips and lets a tear run down her cheek.
"Oh, Michela," she whispers before begrudgingly turning the shovel over and sniffling. The crowd breaks down. The tears form in my eyes.
Lying on the board in the hospital, I am crying, and I do not know why. The doctors think it is trauma from the accident. I think it is survivor's guilt.
"Mom," I whisper.
"Yes?"
"You know Michela died like this."
She searches for the right thing to say.
"I know."
There is a short silence before she continues.
"This certainly makes you believe in God, doesn't it?"
Sure. I know what she wants me to say. But this experience has given me a slightly different vision.
"Yes ... but I believe in Michela too."
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