Sometimes clarity hits you when you're not looking for it, and the veils fall away and you see things in a stark and unfiltered light. Today was powerful. Beyond the marvelous Thanksgiving meal we shared with an amazing group of people, we had some realizations that really emphasized what it means to be grateful for the gift of life... It's funny how sometimes the journey to the destination might be more important than the destination itself...
We spent much of the day looking forward to sharing Thanksgiving dinner with friends at the Eubanks home past Mae Jo University. At 5 pm we peeled out of our neighborhood in a caravan, with Sue & Freeman & Aka in the car in front, Lizzie on her motorcycle behind them, and Becky and I on our scooter in the back. We hadn't anticipated anything too exciting, just a 20 minute drive into the country and then a nice Turkey dinner. But the universe sometimes has plans of its own...
On our way to dinner the traffic was horrendous, with cars and scooters driving bumper to bumper as far as the eye could see. We soon saw why, as we happened upon an accident with cops waving us past what looked to be a minor collision between a couple of vehicles that didn't look too serious. It looked like someone got rear-ended pretty hard, which is a common enough occurrence on any well-traveled stretch of road, and no one appeared to be hurt and the vehicles didn't look badly damaged. A couple miles further down the same road, we came across a second accident, and this one left a much deeper impression. Two motorcycles were sitting on their sides in the far left lane, and on the side of the road someone was lying in the gravel, with their arms cradling their skull and their legs splayed out and moving languidly as the torso twisted and writhed on the ground. No blood, but the body twisting on the earth was clearly in serious pain. Damn. Becky kept driving and as we pulled up next to Liz at the next light we exchanged glances. That was scary. It's never a good thing to drive past broken bones and busted rides, and all of us started to feel a creeping sense of unease. Let's get off this highway asap...
Right as we were getting ready to turn off the main highway, the traffic suddenly got a lot worse, with cars clogging every lane and people suddenly appearing on every available stretch of roadside. Something was wrong. Cops were up ahead at the intersection waving cars past with a tangible sense of urgency and irritation, and we noticed right away that they weren't letting us turn where we needed to go. Then we saw it. A huge industrial cargo truck, an 18-wheel behemoth carrying heavy piles of construction material beneath dirty brown tarps had been stopped 50 feet past the intersection. Beneath its front wheels, crumbled into a flat heap of barely recognizable metal, was the chassis and frame of a small scooter. All around it, people were taking pictures.
The cops waved us past, and as we drove past our turn we looked to the right and saw a tattered white sheet sitting in the road covering up something unidentifiable, surrounded by big puddles of liquid. In a second it came into focus. A mangled hand lay under the white sheet, and what looked like a torso ripped to pieces, possibly severed from the lower body. The dark splotches on the pavement weren't oil or water, but a huge pool of fresh blood, scattered over a wide radius. Someone had just died here, in the most violent way imaginable, and we had happened on the scene within minutes of the collision. We saw the remains, the crushed steel, and all the blood, but before the shock could really register, we had driven past the intersection.
As the traffic slowed, we pulled up to a light and took stock of what we'd just passed. "Did you see that?" Lizzie and Becky exchanged a heavy look. Up ahead, Sue was preparing for a U-turn, which means we'd have to drive by the whole mess again. We waited, found a gap in the traffic, and followed Sue as she turned around and headed back to the intersection. As it neared you could see the crowds of shell-shocked college students gathered on the sidewalks, the cars slowing down to rubberneck, and more cops arriving. Thankfully our line of sight was cut off, and we turned left at the intersection and left the whole sordid scene behind us...
...It's not everyday that you see a fresh corpse in front of you, pouring blood out onto the pavement at your feet. The body was probably still warm, maybe even hot from the flesh melting in the collision. Death puts all things in perspective. Life is short, fleeting, and precious, and ultimately we all end up leaving behind these bodies we so briefly inhabit. When you are forced to confront your own mortality, by staring at a human life spread across the street in front of you, you realize how petty and irrelevant so many of our worries really are. Every moment is a gift, and every day is an opportunity to live fully, and this attitude infuses the passage of time with a certain purpose-driven urgency. Why waste a moment when death is looming? Why live your life afraid of anything? Life goes by too quickly to spend it catering to anything but your highest potential. Speak your truth, say your piece, dance with abandon, eat with relish, and cherish the ones who share your journey. We spend so much time worried about things we can't control. We can control how we spend the time we have, and what we do with the blessings we've been given...
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...Dinner at the Eubanks' home was lovely. Sue's parents Allan and Joan have been in Chiang Mai for over 50 years, and are highly respected community elders who have led incredible, impactful lives here. They've done amazing work, they know wonderful people, and they are among the most gracious and loving hosts we've met in the few short months we've been here. We were welcomed into their home with open arms, shared a sublime meal with close to 30 amazing friends of the family, and offered up our gratitude along with a group of people who have a lot to be thankful for. Many of the people we ate with were people doing Christian mission work, a number were teachers, and many were a part of the Free Burma Rangers team, a fantastic organization doing important work with people in Myanmar. It was a joy and an inspiration to share our first Thanksgiving in Thailand with such an amazing group of people, and we are grateful for our new home, our new friends, the communities we are a part of here, and the larger group of people we consider family all over the world....
We are living a charmed life, and we are eternally grateful and humble before all the grace continually bestowed on us everywhere we go. We hope you are too...
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