Relative Something

People die every day. On the grand scale, it’s too much to comprehend, so when we aren’t aware of specific incidents, we tend to remain oblivious. When it happens to people we know, the news suddenly hits home. But what about when it happens within close proximity to us, but to someone we don’t know?

On the way home from work yesterday, just as I got on the highway, an electronic sign overhead warned of an accident creating a traffic delay. I see enough of them to expect the typical couple of vehicles on the shoulder with crunched bumpers causing traffic to slow down a bit before proceeding on with little impact.

The situation yesterday was dramatically different. A very heavily traveled exit ramp had been closed and a vast multitude of emergency vehicles were gathering to tend to the scene.

When I got close, the thing that first caught my eye was the startling gash of ruptured concrete at the top of the wall that serves as barrier to the frontage road a couple of stories above the Interstate. Without time to comprehend what that meant, my car passed one of the fire engines, and the spot where the lone vehicle had landed came into view. It took my breath away.

There was concrete shrapnel strewn across an incredibly large area, shockingly far beyond the wall from which it had been torn. To the credit of movie-makers everywhere, my impression was that this looked like a movie scene, because it isn’t something you see in real life. I guess the Directors and Special Effects people who create movie crashes do a pretty authentic rendition.

From the looks of the vehicle, that was a ferocious calamity. I feared for a life, or lives.

It was as if everyone could feel it. After we moved clear of the incident, none of the cars around me demonstrated much in the way of urgency toward wherever they were headed.

I tried to forget about it when I got home. We watched a ridiculously bad comedy movie that made us laugh, despite ourselves. It wasn’t enough to distance me from some emotional connection I felt to the earlier incident. When our show was over, I checked news articles online. My suspicion was confirmed: a fatality.

Most folks won’t even be aware of the passing of one more soul yesterday. Normally, that’s the way it would be for me. This time though, the death of a person unknown to me has impacted me significantly, as a result of the close proximity of time and place.

I’m sending love to all who had a connection with this person.

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