Blessing for the Godless

I was raised to be Roman Catholic and have spent the years since in the realm of agnosticism. Some religious folks talk about having their faith shaken, but I had an experience as a young adult that left me wondering if there really was someone or something out there watching over our silly species.

To me, a blessing is a gift. It’s given to me by relatives with a warm “bendición” and expressed in life’s mysterious ways through what we perceive as luck, karma, and justice. My life’s path has been rough and marred with pain, but there was a moment when I felt that I had truly received a preternatural blessing.

I was 20 years old and trapped in a relationship that stole my will to live. I felt that everyone around me, especially my family, was disappointed in all I had become and done thus far. They expected me to be married off and successful already. Didn’t I know that when they were my age, they were already parents? Of course I knew. I couldn’t forget any of this. I cried myself to sleep most nights as these thoughts knocked around my head.

I was with my sister that day. I blame myself for putting her in that situation. I was the one behind the wheel. We were driving home after grabbing some dinner to celebrate that I had received the keys to my first car that afternoon. It was dark, and the city we were in still hadn’t sprung for streetlights on that road. Small raindrops peppered my windshield, just business as usual. People drive in the rain every day. Everything seemed straightforward until we went sideways — and then upside-down.

I learned the term “fishtailing” that day. The early raindrops mixed with the oil slicks on the road to produce a perfect storm. My car slid around and took on a mind of its own. I had never felt so powerless. My fate was out of my hands despite the wheel being gripped inside them. Suddenly, I heard the woods that had been on our right side smacking my car from all sides. The car bounced and rocked to the tune of crumpling metal and crushed glass.

All of a sudden, it stopped. All I could hear was the ringing in my ears until the shock started wearing off. Then, frenzied beeping and the haunting sound of a faint radioq song filled the space. I was on autopilot. I made sure my sister was okay — or as okay as one could be when surrounded by deployed airbags — and grabbed my phone and purse from the piles of broken glass. We climbed out of the car together and started making the trek through the woods in the space my car had barreled through.

It took me a long time to process what had happened. Even as I tearfully explained the accident to the police, picked tiny shards of glass out of my teeth and hair, and sobbed in my mother’s shaking arms, I didn’t fully understand just how closely I had walked the line between life and death. My new car was wrecked beyond repair just hours after I got it. I felt like a failure all over again for causing the crash.

It wasn’t until we saw the totaled mess at the tow lot that I even realized we had walked out of a car that violently rolled into the woods with nothing but superficial abrasions. Clearly, someone or something had chosen to give this mess of a woman a blessing, a second chance at life. I received the gift of clarity: since then, I have cherished life and opened my heart to the possibility of a higher purpose in this world. Statistically, I shouldn’t be here a decade later, typing up my life story with tears in my eyes. I’m glad someone or something decided I should stick around a little longer. I still have a lot more stories in my heart that I want to give life to.