A moment that changed me: I nearly died when I was hit by a car – then started to relish life’s little luxuries

For years, I kept a stash of ‘nice things’, waiting for the right occasion to use them. The accident taught me to live now, rather than in the future

I

used to have a drawer where the “nice things” lived: posh candles and fancy bubble bath; two flagons of Greek extra virgin olive oil; that Aesop handwash, to bring out for visitors. A bottle of fizz gathered dust on the kitchen side and, in the bathroom, an expensive moisturiser remained unopened. Life’s little luxuries, I believed, weren’t for enjoying now, but were to be saved for some unspecified “special” time in the future.

Then I was hit by a car. It happened in May last year, while I was walking down a quiet street soon after lunchtime in Bermuda, where I’d been sent on an assignment for work.

I’ve still no recollection of the minutes before or hours after. I was on a bus, then off a bus; I crossed the road. Nothingness follows. I have a vague visual vignette of being sprawled out on grass, staring up, faces peering down from a height. Next, I’m in an ambulance with no specific sensory memory attached, save wanting to speak to my boyfriend, only my brain was unable to ascertain who or where he was, or if we were even still together. Then, I was in a hospital bed, with a uniformed stranger pottering around me.