Things to Talk About When you are Dead

I hit the telephone pole at about seventy miles an hour. I remember waking up as the car left the country road, feeling the tires bouncing over the rocks in the ditch. My eyes focused just in time to see the lone pole standing defiantly in my path. I didn't even come close to missing it. When I saw the photos of the car later, I realized I hit it dead center. If you are gonna do something, do it right.
I was on my way to work, a daily two hour drive to the oil rig. It was 1981, and I was making fifteen dollars an hour, more money than I could spend. The work was simple for the most part, the commute was difficult. I worked the relief shift which meant that I would work for two days on the morning shift, come back the third day and work the afternoon shift for two days, then return to work the night shift for two days. Four hours driving on bad roads each day at different times was the only downside to the job. The money was great, the work bearable, and I had a welcomed break from college for six months. In hindsight I think I was lucky. If I hadn't crashed late that evening, I might have stayed away from school longer, and perhaps never finishing my degree. Two weeks in intensive care was a high price however.
I woke up seconds before the impact, and again I suppose an hour or so after. I remember being shocked at how fast the world stopped. The car was rocketing through the ditch, jarring me as it careened towards its target. Then, in an instant, it stopped. I didn't feel the impact, just the end of the world. No noise, no feeling, no sight (later I would learn that my head had bounced off of the windshield cutting me deeply, the blood blinded me for several hours). It was about ten hours before anyone found me, and five more before they got me out of the car. I was conscious for most of the ordeal, pinned under the steering wheel. Plenty of time to think.
Through the night, I had a long conversation with someone. I am not sure that I knew who I was talking to, but I know I suspected that it was an angel, or God, or maybe my just the man I should have been. Whoever it was, he knew me well. I suppose now that it was a hallucination, but it didn't feel that way then. It was far too real, far too sobering. I was twenty-two years old, and I thought I was dead.
He asked me who I loved. I told him I loved my family. He asked me who else I loved. I told him I didn't love anyone else, that maybe in the future I would love someone. He told me there had to be someone else, I was missing someone. I eventually figured out that he was referring to loving myself, but I was stubborn and didn't let on. I didn't want to think about such a thing, even if I was dead, or if it was the last thing I would ever contemplate. I just didn't care to deal with it, probably still don't.
The conversation shifted to who I thought were good people. Once again, I asserted that my family were, and he acknowledged. I then asked him who he thought were good people. He told me that anyone who acted consistently in the interest of others was a good person (I am not making this up, nor do I suppose it has to make sense - this is what played out in my mind while trapped in that crushed car). He then said a very intersting thing, basically that mentally retarded people were good people. They saw the world as it truly was - the rest of us had been contaminated by the pursuit of our own selfish interests. Our vision had changed. We didn't know we weren't good because we didn't have the capacity to see the right path. The path in front of us was wrong, but it was all we could see. Struggling mightily to stay on the wrong path was our pitiful legacy. Not only were we doomed to fail to keep the path, it was the wrong one. Kind of a double damned state. I listened carefully.
We talked through the night about good intentions, right paths, the consideration of others. I don't remember the specific context of the later discussion, but I do remember being jarred by the noise of the "jaws of life" as the firemen eventually began to cut the door of my car. Just like that, I was alive again, and the conversation was over. But unlike any inspiration or epiphany before or after that night, my path changed immediately. When I got out of the hospital, I went back to school, changed my emphasis from coaching to teaching, and sent off for a Peace Corps application.
I don't often think of that night. Not because it was traumatic, just because I don't have to. It wasn't a rush of adrenaline that needs to be revisited or replenished. Whatever happened in my mind that night, rerouted my brain and my reality. I can honestly say that I have dedicated my life to improving the lot of others. Yes, I am still Michael, and I do things my way (not always perceived as altruistic), not always succeeding. But I have no ambiguity about my mission in this life, only as to the efficacy of my efforts. That is my question, am I making a difference, am I putting the needs of others first? I have lost track of this often, especially as to the needs of my own family versus the needs of others. Each night before I sleep, I do know that through the day, I was engaged in an activity designed to help someone else in some way. I just pray that I succeed, and the people in my life understand what I am trying to do. A simple prayer.