Send us a Text Message.
Life Shorts with Donna: Bike crashes and bystanders
Hi Friends,
It’s time for my monthly Life Shorts with Donna where I share a short life experience with you. An experience that I hope touches you and inspires you to look at your own life shorts and be inspired by what you’ve learned and the memories you hold dear.
Today, I’m talking about two biking accidents I had and the two very different outcomes from them.
Support the Show.
I hope today’s show helped you or touched you in some way! If it did, please consider following Your Bounce Back Life Podcast, rating it, leaving a review, and sharing this episode with friends and family. I truly appreciate it. And I’m wishing you a bounce back life full of passion, purpose, and peace in the pursuit of joy. Thanks so much listening and see you next week!
Visit me at Your Bounce Back Life website.
Life Shorts with Donna: Bike crashes and bystanders
Hi Friends
It’s time for my monthly Life Shorts with Donna where I share a short life experience with you. An experience that I hope touches you and inspires you to look at your own life shorts and be inspired by what you’ve learned and the memories you hold dear.
Today, I’m talking about two biking accidents I had and the two very different outcomes from them.
***
My new nickname by a pal is Crash. Ever since I crashed my bicycle twice in one year. Both times with different results.
I admit to being a speed demon. I’m an adrenalin junkie. I love to see how fast I can go. It’s why I ended up in a full length cast as a kid after breaking my leg skiing. Zoom Zoom Zoom. I raced to the bottom of the mountain on my skis … but I cartwheeled down instead. And ended up in a stretcher with a trip to the hospital.
But back to crashing my bike more recently.
One summer day biking I suffered a serious concussion and contusions when I swerved to avoid a pedestrian. I had been calling out as I sailed toward them in passing with quite loudly yelling ‘On your left!’ But this woman decided, instead, to move directly into my path. I swerved fast. I flew through the air. My head and body slammed into concrete at 30 mph. My helmet split wide open. It took me two weeks to fully recover. It took me a month to brave getting on a bike again.
Upon crashing, I was so shaken and dizzy I couldn’t rise. I lay sprawled on the concrete struggling to sit up. The woman I had avoided hitting stood over me with hands on her hips. “You shouldn’t have been biking there,” she said, triumphantly. Then she turned around and continued her morning walk, leaving me there on the pavement. Dazed, bleeding, and seeing double I stumbled home with my bike.
Later, when I recovered, I realized:
1. How lucky I was to have survived.
2. I would always bike with a helmet on.
3. I couldn’t believe a human being would so disregard me.
And then I realized, besides being glad to be alive, that I was also glad to NOT be like that woman. That if I had caused a biker to crash, I would have stopped. I would have helped them to their feet. Asked if I could call someone. Asked if they needed help getting home. I knew then that I was glad to be ME. And I was saddened that there were such people in the world as that woman.
And I knew I would never forget her. She would be filed away and used as a character in my next book. A nasty, mean character no one liked. My friends couldn’t even believe that someone would act like that toward another human.
Oh, yes. But I know they do.
And I also know what goes around comes around. Karma and all that.
It’s funny, because I never saw that woman before on my regular morning bike route. And I never saw her since. Perhaps she was a wake-up call for me to go slower, and not feel so invincible.
Then I had my second crash the next spring. Heavy rains came. I went biking one morning along a path that wound around a creek. Speeding along (with my new helmet on) I came around a turn fast. The creek must have risen and crossed the path leaving a deep path of mud inches thick. I hit that mud and skid sideways for a good twenty feet. I slammed into the ground, once again, sliding in mud for what seemed a never-ending out-of-control ride.
I finally came to a stop. Stunned, I rose from the mud shaken. But a lovely family of three witnessed my crash and came to my aid. They helped me up. Found my glasses in the mud that had gone flying. Asked if I was okay. Asked if I needed help getting home. Gave me a towel to wipe off the grime.
What wonderful folks they were. I felt cared for. I felt the world’s humanity pour over me. I knew I would never forget them. They showed me that there are people that care. Like me. They cancelled out the mocking “evil one” who had stood over me as I suffered, arms crossed, and carried on her way. They gave me faith in humanity again. Not all people are bad.
These folks, too, would be filed away. Used as characters in a book someday. Perhaps as guardian angels. Showing us our humble humanity. Showing us that we all hurt the same. We all can heal the same; with words and with a caring response.
And I knew the encounters with both types of people—mean and kind—would seem real in my writing. Because they were real. Good and bad. And both types of people reside in our world.
I must believe though that more of us are good than bad.