The Corvair and the Life That Almost Wasn’t

I remember hearing my mom scream. I remember the windows shattering. I remember slamming against the roof of the car as we tumbled.

I remember seeing my baby brother flying in slo-motion towards an open window, and grabbing his chubby legs to pull him back into the car.

I remember the eerie silence after it was over. I remember calling for my mom, and the panic I felt when I realized she was not in the car.

I remember sitting on a gurney at a hospital and being reassured that my dad was on his way.

I don’t remember much more than that…

Halloween can dredge up some scary memories. I was barely years old at the time, so my memory of the crash is merely bits and pieces. The rest was pieced together from what my parents told me.

It was during the week leading up to Halloween of my first grade year. I had insisted that I wanted to have a ghost costume that year. A simple sheet-over-the-head ghost. My mom had a penchant for making much cooler costumes than that, usually with great success. (One specific failure detailed here.)

One day I was home faking sick and she decided we should drive into Salt Lake City to pick up something for my ghost costume. (I don’t recall exactly what it was, but I think it might have been glow in the dark dye or reflective paint, etc.)

My brother and I sat in the back seat together. He was around two years old. We were both unbuckled. Don’t judge – it was 1968 – seatbelts were not de rigueur yet. The car? A Chevy Corvair – an oddly “sporty” car for a mother of 4. (A car later investigated for safety issues…) It was a cool car. We loved it.

We were heading south on the freeway outside of North Salt Lake when, suddenly, the left front tire blew. The blowout caused the car to lurch to forcefully lurch to the left, and my mom lost control.

Witnesses reported seeing the car leave the road at a high speed and fly off the edge of the freeway. It flipped end-over-end twice, before rolling several time down the embankment , where it came to rest in the ditch that separated the two sides of the freeway.

A few passersby stopped, someone went for help (no cellphones.) When people came down and peered in the window to find us sitting there, they were surprised to see us huddled in the back seat, but even more astonished to see us alive.

The car was demolished. All the windows were blown out, and the roof was partially collapsed.

As I mentioned, I knew that my mom wasn’t in the car, but I had no idea where she was. I later learned that she had been thrown through the windshield when the car had flipped.

I have vague recollections of riding in a an ambulance with my mom. I remember being examined in the hospital. I remember my dad showing up to comfort us.

We boys had some bumps and bruises. We were shaken up, but fine. The doctors took more time with my mom. I remember waiting, and being scared.

That evening, we all went home together. Nobody could believe it. We were banged up, but alive. It was, indeed, miraculous.

My mom, however, did not emerge completely unscathed. Over the years she had back troubles that were attributed to that fateful October crash. They caused her pain, and limited some of her abilities in her life, that was already saddled with a lot of physical ills and injuries..

What got me thinking about this? The easy answer is Halloween, but it has also caused me to reflect on something else: How quickly our lives can change, and how little control we actually have.

The most obvious thought is that without some divine intervention, we kids would have lost our mom, and my dad would have lost his wife.

In an instant. One minute we are merrily driving down the road – the next… I shudder to think.

There are so many ways it could have gone wrong. I could have lost my brother, and been saddled with undeserved guilt. Someone’s injuries could have altered the trajectory of their life, and those around them. We four kids could have lost our mom.

What if my mom had been a dancer or an athlete? Those pursuits would have probably ended.

And so it is with all of us: One minute we can be merrily driving down the road, and the next minute, our lives are completely flipped upside down.

It happens all the time. Our lives rarely go according to “plan.”

We don’t plan for injuries or sickness.

We don’t plan on spending our lives single, or childless.

We don’t expect to lose those we love in an untimely fashion.

We don’t plan on being unemployed, or broke. Or relocating to some strange new place.

We don’t plan on having to change our lifestyle due to health or injury.

We do exercise some control over what happens in our lives – or at least we like to think we do. When it gets down to it, the only thing we can really control is what goes on in our minds and hearts.

This line of thinking has caused me to ask myself a few questions:

• How do I define myself?

• How do others define me?

• Am I defined by things that could disappear with the snap of the fingers, or the snap of a hamstring?

• Is my self-concept and self-worth based on something that could vanish with a pink slip, or a recession?

This is what I have been thinking about as I have reviewed some of the most recent conference talks. So much time was spent on how to gain wisdom, and how to have a relationship with Heavenly Father and the Holy Ghost.

Even more specifically, we were counseled about how to react when things don’t go “according to plan.”

Take a minute and just look at the titles of the talks from the most recent General Conference, and you can see that it is about who we are, and our relationship with God.

So many talks were about our need to depend on the Holy Ghost to guide us through the twists and turns- and blow-outs – that life can throw at us.

So many talks urged us to seek to learn what God’s will is for us.

It is all so fragile, yet sometimes I just plow forward with a false sense of control, thinking I have all the time in the world, and all the resources at my disposal to do what I want to do.

But that can all change in the blink of an eye. The thing about life changing moments is they often only take a moment. (I think we all know that from experience, but I’m not sure we life our lives in readiness for it.)

I am not advocating for a life of paranoia, but a life of spiritual readiness and flexibility. A readiness, and willingness to be malleable in God’s hands.

As Hamlet said, “There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all.”

Or, as one of our Church leaders recently said, “The world in which we live is similar to the potter’s spinning wheel, and the speed of that wheel is increasing. Like the clay on the potter’s wheel, we must be centered as well. Our core, the center of our lives, must be Jesus Christ and His gospel.” (Elder Richard Maynes)

Or, as emphasized in the poem quoted by Sister Neill Marriott:

Have Thine own way, Lord!

Have Thine own way!

Thou art the Potter;

I am the clay.

Mould me and make me

After Thy will,

While I am waiting,

Yielded and still.

I need to be the “me” that matters most to God, rather than the “me” that matters most to “me” as I make my way through this world.

Hopefully they aren’t too far apart.