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Jan 9, 2004 There is a song written by Joanie Mitchell that has an extremely catchy hook. The chorus has been etched in my memory from the first time I heard the song. The chorus of the song goes as follows, “don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone.” I also can recall Janet Jackson doing a more contemporary and hip version of the popular song. Though the melody had been changed to make the tune more appealing to the youth of today, the message contained within the song remained untainted and in tact. As cliché as the catching verse is in the song, it seems as though many people could argue that truer words have never been spoken. I often listen to music because I am a fan of lyrics. The more cerebral and thoughtful the lyric the more I delight in the song itself. I have also noticed that something usually happens for me to actually hear a song though. I can only compare this idea to reading novels when I was younger. I would glance over the words and read every word on a page, but would have absolutely no idea what I had read once I had finished a selection. My mind recognized the words and lined them up one after another, but did not comprehend the words as a cohesive unit. There were probably many important and noteworthy ideas that I missed because I did not actually “read” those books. I often find the same thing true with lyrics to songs. My mind hears the words to songs on a superficial level, and it is not until some event in my life, or around me transpires that actually makes me ponder what the words truly mean. I think that this may be the case with the majority of people in the world. There are extreme or traumatic events that occur in their lives that force them to take a more detailed look at their surroundings and not just take those things at face value. I was just recently able to make a little excursion home to visit my family for the holidays. The trip was among one of the finest that I have had in recent times. I was able to catch up with a great deal of my childhood friends and see family members that I rarely have an opportunity to see. I was able to catch up with my parents in a way that is very difficult to accomplish over the phone, there truly is no substitute for face-to-face interaction. I was also able to see the maturation and growth of a lot of my younger family members. I am blown away when I see how quickly a young baby makes their voyage into adolescence and then adulthood. I thrive on these trips home and they truly do go a long way in creating my own personal desideratum. I believe that family and friends are the two most important elements that people have in these things we call our lives. I had never in my wildest dreams contemplated what it would be like to not be a member of the living. I had never allowed my mind to contemplate what it would truly be like to not have any feelings, thoughts, experiences, or sense what was going on in this world. I believe that part of this was because of my very inherent and real fear of nothingness. It absolutely terrifies me to ponder the absence of everything. It is even more abstract and difficult to try and conceptualize my being and self, gone from everything that I have ever known. This line of thought eluded me for quite some time, but has recently become very easy to think about and has in fact monopolized a great deal of my thoughts. It was about 9:00 o’clock central time and had probably stopped snowing about three hours ago. I was still at home and was very weary to head back to my apartment in Michigan approximately four and a half hours away. There had been a snowstorm that had enveloped most of the Midwest that day, but it had subsided and it seemed like we could safely get from Chicago to Michigan. My friend Aimee was in visiting from Michigan and her and I were going back together. So we embarked on a journey that would prove to be one of the most memorable in our lifetimes. We were on the expressway and had just exited the city limits of Chicago and were in Indiana. We were traveling in the far left lane and had adopted a speed that was practical to be moving at considering the elements. The radio played at a low hum and we proceeded as most people would on a long driving trip. Cars that were in front of us kicked up wet snow from the road onto our windshield so the wipers were a tool that was used from time to time. The music played and we marched on towards our destination. We were traveling at about fifty miles per hour when my entire life changed. The car began to fishtail out of control. I am not aware of what caused this violent and uncontrollable wavering of the vehicle. It was almost as if the car had come alive, and liberated itself by seizing control of the vessle. I let up on the accelerator and tried to regain control of the ship that had rebelled against its captain. It seemed as if I had extinguished the fire when all of a sudden the car swerved again this time more wildly than before. I tried to calm Aimee down by trying to comfort her and to let her know that we would in fact be okay. I honestly believed with everything in my soul that we would be. I tried to calm her and retain my composure so we would make it out of the situation in the best possible shape. At this point in time we had glided into the middle lane of the expressway from our lane on the far left. We had spun so that we were perpendicular to oncoming traffic. I tried to again regain control of the car and stabilize us. As we were still spinning I saw a car approaching from the lane we had been forced to depart from. This car was closing in on Aimee’s side and I was able to turn the wheel enough for the car to avoid us, barely. As we continued our decent into the abyss another car approached us very quickly. The car jettisoned towards us at a rate that seemed impossible to gauge at the time. The car struck our rear, sending us across our final lane towards the median on the right side of the expressway. I was able to stop the sliding of the vehicle at this point in time, but not before we ended up facing oncoming traffic head on. The entire incident probably took about one minute, but it was honestly the longest period of time in my life. I can remember crystal clear every single detail about that accident. That tiny increment of time probably seemed inconsequential to the rest of the universe, but it was an eternity to everyone involved. It also proved to be the moment where we were able to continue living instead of perishing. That juncture in time seemed so surreal, I felt like if I were to have gone to sleep right then the entire affair would have proved to just have been a dream. I tried to pull myself together as much as possible in an attempt to not worsen an already traumatic situation. I made sure Aimee was okay; though it was apparent she was visibly shaken. She dealt with the situation better than most people I can think of, and I was amazed at the composure she exhibited. I then hopped out of the car and went to check on the people that had hit us. I encountered an overweight couple between the ages of about thirty-five and forty. The gentleman that was driving did not seem overly traumatized and expressed to me that he was more so worried about his companion that was about four months pregnant. He notified me that he did not have a cellular phone and that I would have to contact the authorities. I heeded his words and got a hold of the police. They asked me if everyone that was involved in the accident was okay. It took me a second to answer the question, but I soon realized that no one had even a scratch on them. I communicated to him that there were in fact no injuries at all, miraculously. He then advised us to exchange information and be on our way since they were far too busy that evening with people that were actually injured. So it seemed that in as much time as it had taken for the accident to occur it had also ended. It about a half hour’s worth of time this entire incident had stained my memory and written itself on the blank pages of manuscript that are my life. There would be no waking up from this moment and having it merely be a dream, this had been recorded for me to look back on and mull over for the rest of my life. So that brings me to where I am presently. I never ever thought to delve into what it would be like to not be here. That singular occurrence has prodded me to address ideas and thoughts that I never would have before. I realize that during that minute Aimee and I as well and the couple involved were the luckiest people on the planet. I hope that I never have to be that lucky ever again in my life. It seems as though this experience has been the catalyst for me to open my eyes to some things that I was blind to before. I truly realize now how much I do enjoy being around my family and my friends. It was inexplicable for me to even consider what it would be like to not have them be apart of my life any more. I never really considered what it would be like to never see my younger family members evolve into young adults. I would have never known how successful they could have been, or if they would have liked their jobs. I would have had no idea of if they would have made wonderful parents and had beautiful families. I would have never seen my parents retire and grow old together after they had given my brother and I so much. The very worst part about the situation would have been how many lives would have been destroyed in the process. The four of us involved all had families that love us dearly, and that would have been destroyed. The bonds that had taken years and years to forge could have been destroyed in those sixty seconds. That minute could have gone either way, but everyone that was involved was extremely fortunate that it went the way it did. We were not only lucky for our sake, but also for the sake of the people that love and care about us. It seemed as though we were hanging in the balance during that minute and we quite possibly could have lost everything. That minute was significant because it allowed for me to open my eyes to a very real reality; nothing on this planet is guaranteed and at any given moment something that you truly love can be taken away from you. So I suppose as cliché as “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone” seems to be, one must give credence to the notion. That minute allowed for me to envision what it would be like to have nothing, and experience nothingness. Even though I am not exactly sure what it would be like to have nothing, I know that I will be more appreciative of the things I care about while they are in fact here. I never gave that little corny hook much attention in the past but I will for the rest of my life, in retrospect, I guess it just takes a minute to really “hear” where Joanie was going with her famous song. ------------ About the author: Jason Trace is a senior at Michigan State University who is majoring in English. Email Jason Trace: tracejas@msu.edu Comment on this column in the forum. Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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