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Cherish Your Life

Live, Laugh, Love

By Chris Dunmire, CurrentLiving.com

Last week I was on my way to meet a friend at my favorite walking path by the lake. The path is about 10 minutes from my house, with two stop light intersections in between. The drive overpasses a major interstate highway on the route, but is typically "safe" feeling and uneventful. That is, it was until that day.

While waiting first in line at a red stop light, the oncoming traffic had the green light. Waiting patiently, I listened to my Tori Amos CD, and the song where she asks God "why he sometimes doesn't come through" was playing. For a few moments I zoned out of my reality and into the symbolism of the lyrics but was instantly shocked back into reality by something that looked terribly wrong in front of me.

If you've ever had front row seats to a real car collision, you know how surreal the experience is. In sickening slow-motion, I witnessed a big white van run the red light from the left and collide into a small red car driving towards me in oncoming traffic. For a split second, I watched in horror anticipating getting tangled in the mess, not knowing what my own fate would be. It's a helpless, praying moment. I felt frozen in time — still, the Tori Amos song "God" played on.

The impact from the white van hit the red car so hard that it spun completely around before missing me by inches, abruptly stopping next to my car facing forward. When the gravel and dirt settled, the entire intersection sat in stunned silence. After taking a deep breath, I cautiously looked into the passenger's side window of the red car next to me and saw the driver was in shock. The look on his face still haunts me. At that point I could feel the adrenaline surge in me and my whole body began to tremble. What almost happened to me was horrific, but what did happen to the driver of the red car was even more so. This whole event unfolded within seconds and could have ended very differently for all of us based on any combination of variables. Perhaps God did come through. I wonder if the red car driver would think so.

It took several days for me to process the car crash event to the point where I didn't have an overwhelming sickening feeling rise in my stomach each time I approached an intersection. The horrid visions and sounds of the van plowing into the car began subsiding in my mind. This is the first time I've been so close to a collision like this — so close I was almost part of it — and it was as if what happened to the driver of the red car happened to me. It was so close that I could feel it. The force of the impact blew right through me and that energy lingered for days.

A Single Moment Can Change Everything

I was in the middle of writing about this experience when the news broke of the 23-year-old man who killed 32 students and professors in the massacre at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. This latest school violence has been labeled "the worst shooting in modern U.S. history" and the scope of this horrific event and the media attention given to every detail associated with it is so overwhelming that you can feel the mourning darkness spreading across the country and permeating into the mass consciousness of its citizens.

Closer to home, as I type these words, one of my dearest friends is waiting in vigil with family members at the bedside of her 90-year-old father who has been slipping away peacefully today, breathing in the last breaths of his physical life. A few hours ago she informed me that his body is breaking down because he is not getting enough oxygen. It won't be long. One of his breaths tonight will be his last.

I titled this piece "Cherish Your Life: Live, Laugh, Love" because in a week's time I've been vividly reminded of how much can change for any one of us by a single unfolding moment. We sometimes get so caught up in our routines and in the business of living that we take it for granted that we will be here tomorrow or next week or next year. We put things off — little, but important things like spending time over a cup of coffee with an old or new friend; writing e-mails or making phone calls to family members who live far away; thanking people of all ages who do nice things for us; and appreciating the blooming flowers, the playful animals, and the nurturing of nature that lovingly supports our lives.

Sometimes, in the pettiness of conflict and insistence on personal preference we forget how each new day is a gift to us to learn and grow and share again, to put aside the regrets of yesterday and move forward with a clean slate and renewed spirit for living vibrantly, laughing heartily, and loving more fully. For all we know, today — this moment — is all we really have. Gratitude for the smallest gifts and moments of wonder stitches together a beautiful tapestry to celebrate our existence as individuals and as a collective body who are really in all this together, though many insist on separateness.

Cherish Your Life, the Earth, Each Other

In the wake of this week's tragedy at Virginia Tech and the ongoing violence and loss of life happening every day around this planet, I send this loving invitation out to everyone it resonates with.

Make this moment count. And the next one, and the one after that. Spend your energy today thoughtfully on words and actions that serve you and others well. Be grateful for what you have, knowing that you have far more than you'll ever need. Celebrate your gifts, your creativity, your voice in this grand chorus of life. You and I are both here to inspire one another, to help one another, to share with one another. Sing from your soul. Cherish your life and the lives of those around you. We are all in this together •

© 2007 Chris Dunmire, CurrentLiving.com. All rights reserved. (04/22/07) Please do not duplicate this article elsewhere without my permission.

About the Author
Chris Dunmire is creatively engaged in life as an artist, writer, humorist, and publisher of the popular Creativity Portal Web site. She's trained as a creativity coach with Eric Maisel, Ph.D., and develops projects and playbooks to encourage creative thinking, artistic expression, and play in people of all ages. Learn more about Chris's books at CreativeSlush.com.