-Have you ever been frightened at the thought of dying?
I’m sure with the global pandemic of COVID-19 spreading to the four corners of the earth, and stay-at-home orders being issued by most of our nation’s governors to slow the spread of this horrible virus, have caused many of us to contemplate our own mortality.
As a young eight-year-old, I stared death straight in the face as a swarm of vehicles came barreling down the highway headed straight for my mother and me as we stood directly in their path awaiting an uncertain doom.
When I was a reporter for The Sampson Independent at the beginning of this century, one of the most terrifying experiences I endured almost on a daily basis was crossing the street.
I didn’t relish the experience.
My legs would become very heavy, almost lead-like, and it would be considerably difficult for me to get my limbs to cooperate.
Sometimes when I arrived at work in the morning, there would be no where to park along the street next to the building. So I was forced to park in the empty lot across from the newspaper office located on West Elizabeth Street.
Then I had to dodge traffic coming from both directions and I never knew when a vehicle was going to come flying around the corner.
I always pictured myself like one of those cartoon characters getting hit by a car and skyrocketing into the air before falling back to the earth all sprawled out, flat as a pancake.
I could never live in a metropolitan area where I would be forced to cross a sizable thoroughfare.
My hypothesis was proven when I ventured to Washington, D.C. in the spring of 2002.
When I went to our nation’s capital over the Memorial Day holiday weekend to visit my cousin Kenny, we went to visit some of the monuments along the mall in the heart of the city.
It had been nearly 20 years since I had been there.
Not only had I forgotten how much walking was required, I did not recollect how difficult it was to navigate the flurry of activity from the bustling motorists along the city streets.
Because I was so terrified of being rundown by the motorists sitting at the traffic lights with their engines revving, I forced my cousin and his roommate to walk on either side of me while I clutched their arms as we crossed the street.
This reminded me of the time my family and I took a trip to Denver, Colorado, the summer of my ninth birthday.
We drove all the way from Pennsylvania, so it took us several days to reach our destination. We passed through five states – Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas – to get to the Centennial State.
Since we were only able to pack so many article of clothing in our suitcases, eventually we needed to seek out and find a laundromat to wash all of our dirty linens.
There just happened to be one such laundromat almost directly across the street from the motel we were staying at while in the mountaintop metropolis of Denver.
The only thing that separated us from the 24-hour cleaning service was a six-lane freeway.
Houston, we have a problem!
Instead of loading up the family and our dirty clothes in the station wagon, my parents proceeded to drag us across six lanes of oncoming traffic from both directions.
Of course, we waited until there was nothing coming in either direction, which took quite awhile considering there were three lanes going both ways. I thought we were going to be standing there for half the day.
Just when we thought the coast was clear, our little family ventured across the painted asphalt.
My father made it safely across to the other side with my brother and sister and one basket of laundry. However, my mother and I were in the center of the expressway when I became frozen in time.
I was like a deer in headlights.
Hanging on to the hem of my mother’s dress while she carried the other basket of laundry, I glanced behind her and saw the line of oncoming traffic. My legs began to stiffen like cement until I was unable to move.
My mother was powerless to do anything. Since she had a load of laundry in her hands, it’s not like my mother could pick me up and tote the dirty clothes at the same time.
We were in quite the quandary.
My mother did the only thing she could think of. She screamed for my father, who had just stepped off the asphalt on the other side of the road.
The next few moments were some of the most terrifying of my life. It was as if time came to a virtual standstill. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. My life passed before my eyes. And since I was less than a decade old, that film was a rather short one.
As the line of vehicles inched closer, my father left my siblings on the side of the road as he desperately ran back across to the center-line and physically picked me up, guiding my mother and I to safety just as hordes of automobiles swept past us.
Needless to say, when It was time to head back to the motel room after the laundry was finished, my father went back to the motel and brought the car back to pick us up.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
Just as people’s fears of death are heightened over this current pandemic, I was faced with a tragic end at a young age just by crossing a city street.
The Bible says in Hebrews 9:27, that… “it is appointed unto men once to die…”
I have a compromised immune system. So my prognosis would not be good if I contracted this deadly disease. But we all have an appointment with destiny. If I am meant to die, I just need to make sure I am ready to meet my Maker.
However, if it is not my time to go, just as it wasn’t my time to go that day on a city street in Denver, Colo., some how, some way, God will put a hedge of protection around me and bring me through this horrific ordeal unscathed.
Mark S. Price is a former city government/county education reporter for The Sampson Independent. He currently resides in Clinton.
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April 07, 2020 at 05:26PM
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Terrifying street crossing - Sampson Independent
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