Rishire Writes

Yesterday, I got into a hit and run accident while stopped at a light. Somehow this is my second accident like this in the 11 months that I’ve had my car, but this one caused much more damage to the point that my sweet automobile is at a body shop in the Bronx. As I sat in my car while the damage was being done, unable to do much of anything but lay on the horn hoping the other driver would hear me and stop moving, I was shocked, confused, angry, and in the midst of those emotions, I was incredibly grateful. I could see how the accident could have been much worse, and not only that, I could see how my reaction could’ve been much worse.

As the lone survivor of a fatal car crash over ten years ago, I have experienced my fair share of grief. I’m not completely sure I went through every single one of the phases, and I definitely don’t know if I did them in order, but what I can say is that grief is never ending. Once you experience it, it lives with you forever, ebbing and flowing through your days as time moves forward despite your desperate pleas for it to stop. In a lot of ways, time did stop, at least for me.

I recently had a conversation with my mentor in which she had to give me some tough love about the way I talk about myself and my professional skills. I tend to downplay the work that I’ve done out of massive insecurity that it’s not good enough to qualify as being on a competitive level. I traced this imposter syndrome back to the accident that took my mother and sister’s lives, the accident that seems to have stunted my growth in a matter of speaking.

For over a decade, I have felt like the fifteen year old girl whose life almost ended and definitely changed. My mind often reverts back to her to hold on to a time before I became her. It’s like I’ve been living in two realities – this one and the one where I didn’t know grief. Moving forward and recognizing the passing of time is something that doesn’t happen linearly for me. Some days feel like a continuation of the day before, and some days feel like waking up in the hospital after the accident to the news of my loss – shocking, confusing, and enraging.

But just as it was yesterday, in the midst of those feelings, I was grateful – grateful that God saved me, grateful that He has such a purpose for me that He essentially snatched me from the jaws of deaths, and grateful that I have His favor in my life. I live with that gratitude every day, and it has brought me peace. Yes, I still grieve. Even now, I can find myself almost surprised that these things have happened to me and that I’ll never be able to make new memories with two of the most important people in my life. But I have to keep moving forward, because I can’t even imagine where He plans for me to go.

Thank you, Jesus.