In the space between calamity and a miracle

By now you know I sometimes have a flair for the dramatic but believe you me when I say I literally almost died today.

Not like how millennials from LA say  “OMG I like literally almost died” but like, for real.

I was standing outside of New Gate trying to get a taxi — looking at the map on GETT, talking to the driver and completely distracted.

I’ve got a lot on my mind of these days— the war, a big loss in my family and some other stuff, and speaking in Hebrew (badly) with a driver whose Hebrew was only marginally better than mine presents all kinds of challenges.

It was also the last day of Hanukkah and everyone and their safta seemed to be descending on Jerusalem so traffic was a beast.

The driver and I did our best to understand each other in several languages, including, but not limited to Arabic, Hebrew, English Yiddish and Russian.

The sky was blue, the Jerusalem stones a mellow gold… basically a stunning day.

But the driver was stuck in traffic — and I was stuck at New Gate – and looking at the map on the application and listening to the driver share his thoughts and feelings on traffic patterns, the current government and the cost of living (he summed them all up with two very specific words, words “kus emo” — IYKYK)

Anyway, as I was standing there waiting for him and trying to direct him and looking at the map, suddenly someone grabbed my arm so hard that I nearly flipped over backwards.

And as I hurled into empty space, I felt the bush of cold hard metal against my coat as the light rail train zoomed past me, horn blaring.

The woman who pulled me back from the abyss hugged me.

She was my age, more or less — my height, too. She was wearing a black hijab.

She wrapped her arms around me and asked me in Hebrew if I was OK.

I started shaking in her arms – her arms as soft as wings.

The light train was long gone and the tracks before me were empty again. The sky was still blue. The air crisp. The sun, a spectacular gold.

If she hadn’t been there, I’m not sure what would’ve happened:

Maybe the train would’ve been able to stop at the last possible second, although I shudder to think about the people on board and what they would’ve endured with a rough brake system.

Maybe it wouldn’t have stopped.

Maybe I would be dead.

All I know is this is the closest I’ve ever come to something truly catastrophic, and it was all such foolish human error — careless distraction — such a simple, stupid mistake

And all I ALSO really  know is that a woman from a world so vastly different than mine reached across that intricately fragile thread between life and death, pulled me back and saved me.

She asked me again if I was OK.

I sobbed into her neck.

No, I’m not OK and yes, I am OK.

I am two things at the same time.

Several hours have passed and I’m still processing all of this — I’m shaking and I’m relieved. I’m horrified at my own recklessness, and I’m grateful that this woman was there in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.

I have no words of wisdom to impart except:

1. Don’t  stand near the light rail tracks.

2. Life is so short, and so precious, and it is also extremely wide and anything can happen in that space — and we exist in that space between calamity and miracle.

Sometimes we get lucky.

And sometimes we don’t.

But what matters is how we look out for one another just as this total stranger looked out for me.

It didn’t matter that I was speaking Hebrew.

It didn’t matter that I am a Jew.

She acted on instinct, the same instinct that makes us flee and fight and breathe and love.

This is Jerusalem and par for the course.

We never know how much time we have left —- maybe we get decades, maybe just a few more moments … and no matter how careful we think we are, sometimes things happen, whether it’s illness or accident or just an abrupt and shocking  finish to our life on earth as we know it.

But my wish for all of us as we move forward in life, is that we look out for ourselves, and for one another, and remember that we are all part of the same exquisite beating heart, capable of being there for each other  in the sacred space between death and life that we are given to share