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Every now and then, my brain goes traveling down Memory Lane for no specific reason. And it comes back with a totally random very specific piece of my past.

Usually something that has to do with my childhood.

Chéri is very familiar with these Family Flashes, because I always feel the need to share them with him, when they happen.

I thought I’d start a little series, like a scrapbook of these tiny bits of my life.

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You might remember the Volkswagen Rabbit I mentionned in a previous Family Flash, not so long ago.

It had a rather brutal end as you can tell from the pictures above.

I don’t know why I have these photos in my personal archives. You’d think they belong in Mom and Dad’s memory albums, but somehow, they ended up with me. Maybe because I was meant to tell the story.

It was in March of 1984 or 1985. The third, and it’s no mystery I remember that detail because it was the day before my birthday.

We lived in Fermont, a remote town in the far North of the province. Back then, there were no roads to drive to Fermont. The only two ways to go there were by train or by plane. And that day my grand-mother (Mom’s Mom) and my only blood-related uncle and godfather were coming to celebrate me turning five or six.

We had picked them up at Wabush’s airport, and were driving back home.

Mind you, that meant four adults and two kids in a VW Rabbit, which already defied the laws of physics. The weather wasn’t particularly bad, but in that area, in March, driving around was never perfectly safe (especially in a tiny Rabbit).

Despite all of that, it was a pretty quiet ride, until, while driving up a pretty steep slope along a cliff, we heard Dad’s warning.

Oh, shit!

Another driver was trying to make their way down the slope, but the icy road was tricky and they lost control of the vehicule at some point. The other car started zigzaging down our way, and Dad did his best to avoid the crash. With no luck, as the car hit us head on, sending us straight into the guard rail.

The damage to our little Rabbit might not seem extreme at first sight. But that was back in the days when cars didn’t get torn to pieces by a minor bump in the rear end. There were no airbags either.

It was brutal.

Regardless, the only people hurt in the crash were my uncle, who had a bad bruise across the chest from his seatbelt. And Mom. Mom did get a concussion and apparently, because of the shock of the impact, her gynecologist never found her IUD back again.

The funny thing is that I don’t remember anything about my birthday, the day after that accident. And that might seem a little sad, but I beg to differ.

Because to this day, all six people (nonsense) who were sitting in our little Rabbit, are still alive.

Call it luck or destiny.

I think we just weren’t meant to die that day. And I’m quite grateful for that.

 

 

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