What loss really is.

Just two months after I graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill I was driving to my parent’s house in Virginia. They live in a rural area where the roads are full of twists and turns, not to mention animals. Just before midnight as my car was at the top of a hill about to head down I spotted an animal in the road. My (bad) instincts took over and I swerved the car to miss the animal. What happened after that is a blur. It probably only took a few seconds, but it felt like an hour. I lost control of my car as it fish-tailed down the road. Whether I was going forwards or backwards, left or right was a mystery to me; I had no sense of where I was going. At one point I saw that my car was going through a patch of kudzu, glowing bright green from my high beams inches from them, but I could not see the road. For those briefs seconds, I thought my life had reached it’s end. Moments later my car came to a rest. The engine had cut off but the CD player was still playing Sugar Ray’s “Falls Apart” (ironic title given the circumstances and that part of the lyrics are “runaway, runaway”). I cut the ignition off immediately worried the car would explode. After I turned the ignition off I realized my car was on laying on the driver’s side. Still worried the car would explode with me in it, I quickly unbuckled the seat belt, climbed up to the passenger’s door, pushed the door up and walked onto the top of the passenger’s side of the car. Now I tried to figure of which side of the car I should jump from, not sure if the car would fall down on me once I jumped. I think I finally decide to jump towards the side of the car where the bottom faced out. My hope was the wheels would help keep the car from falling back and even if it did, the wheels would help prevent the entire force of the car from falling on me. After all was said and done, I learned my car went down an 12 foot drop from the road rolling about 2 revolutions in the process.

A few days later I cried as what had happened really crystallized in my head. I was real close to death or being paralyzed. Despite this, I have always told my family and close friends that the wreck was the best thing that ever happened to me. I used the money from the insurance to buy my first place when I was living in Washington, DC. But more so, I learned lessons in life that I could have never learned otherwise. I learned not to take life so seriously and appreciate every day I had. Before little things had bothered me but not anymore. Being able to walk on my own, see my family and friends were what really mattered to me. I thanked God for teaching me the most important lesson I’ve ever learned in my life and promised Him I would always remember it.

This weekend was another reminder of the lesson I learned. After being upset at the UNC men’s basketball team loosing to Georgetown, we all learned the next day that Jason Ray, who portrayed the UNC mascot “Ramses” died in New Jersey after being hit by a car outside of the hotel where he was staying. Ray was in New Jersey with the UNC Basketball team for the regional being held there. Ray’s death reminds us what loss really is. Sports in the end are trivial; they are just games and aren’t life and death. That UNC game loss looks small now. I never met Ray; I only saw him backstage at basketball games. But today I pray for him and his family.