Once, on a rainy night, I left the hospital and began the cycle home. The sky was dark and my front light had run out of battery so I rode at a snail’s pace, carefully avoiding the passing cars. Yet as I was entering the city on a downward slope, a gust of wind blew me off balance and my wheels slipped. I braked firmly enough to lower the impact force, but could not avoid toppling sideways onto the road, where one second later, a car came flying past, swerving wildly to narrowly avoid my arm. He yelled some obscenity out the window which I couldn’t hear through the rain.

Getting back up on the bike was a religious experience of sorts. Had I been one second slower, or the car one second faster, we certainly would have collided, and there was no knowing what damage that could have done.

Now when I ride home safely I do not take it for granted. Serendipity is the mother of gratitude.