8 of January 1984
There was a premonition, though only later I could make sense of it. A poem jotted down hastily in the back sit of the car, only half an hour before, on the front page of my little address book. Inspired by the French poets of the nineteenth century it was decadent, pessimistic, self destructive.
I remember only few lines, I lost it in one of my travels and I regret not having it anymore.
The flat tire required we stop the car on the National road 7, near Aix- en –Provence, in order to replace it. I felt a sort of agitation and didn’t want to remain sitting in the car as my friends asked me. We didn’t possess the car warning triangle sign. So I offered myself for the safety of my friends.
Last thing I remember was the kind voice of a man who stopped his car offering help and suggesting me to be careful. I declined his offer and he drove away. After that just a flash like a lightening bolt.
I opened my eyes and there was only blackness, as deep as a night without moon. Utter nothingness. And yet no fear.
What has happened? My mind is roaming frantically trying to answer. Thoughts flying around that had no connection with each other. I only recall the most trivial of them: “I lost one of my contact lenses. It never happened before.”
Why am I lying here? Whose are these voices screaming from a far distance?
Then as quickly as the thoughts came they also disappeared. I felt a gentle hand cradling me in a place made of air. I can almost touch, now, the incredible Peace that pervaded my whole being. I was carried in a dimension unknown to me. There was not a battered body, neither a mind that was thinking, only the soft caress of this invisible hand.
I didn’t wanted to leave, but the forces of gravity were stronger and pulled me down. I was lying on my belly and felt no sensation from my waist to my feet. Worries. I was wondering what happened to my legs, I felt as my lower body was not with me, instead was left behind on the road where I was a second ago, or perhaps long ago. I didn’t know where I was, who I was, which day it was. Just a great emptiness in front of me.
Strange languages. Not Italian not English. Voices. Terrified voices. People were calling what it seemed to be my name, not founding me, lost as I was in the bushes far from the road. I was trying to say I am here. No sound. Annoyed by their frightening screams I left them behind and once again I was suspended above the ground. What an incredible pervasion of immense Peace. There was a sense of perfection, a delicate state of being, limitless, serene, mystical. A serenity of now, here and everywhere. A sound with no melody and no silence but a wave of tranquility gently embracing the essence of me.
The disturbing noise from below called me back to my body and although no physical pain was experienced, my mind was worrying about the numbness in my legs. A terrible question started haunting me: Do I have my legs? I could hear someone saying yes. Than, I thought, everything is all right. And I was transported again into that peaceful state where nothing could touch “me” anymore.
A drunken driver was overtaking on the right side. His car hit my body at the speed of 100km/h and then I flew 50 meters away in the bushes. Twice heavily injured. Still today, 27 years later, I carry the consequence of that day.
I stayed 6 months in hospital, 2 weeks in an Intensive care, I underwent around 9 long surgeries in the first 6 months that saved my life. Over the years I had many more surgical operation, mostly to my legs and knees.
But I didn’t die. What is left is a moment, a moment of eternity, when I lingered at the door and glimpsed into the beyond. And that Peace.
I woke up five days later in the intensive-care unit, unable to move, not recognizing my own body, wrapped in white bandages like a mummy. My mother’s wet eyes were warmly smiling at me and the doctors started to call me “petit italienne”.
My life as I knew it was over, and a second chance, like a promise, was all I had.
July 2010 over the Alpine house Brentei-Brenta group-
