A Dash Of Life

It was 1980, and John Lennon was finally going to release a new album.  I wasn’t even 10 yet, but the Beatles were a core part of my life.  Lennon had been aloof for a long time, not recording.  The Beatles were the only rock music in my Dad’s record collection, so they got to me early on.  He could have done way worse.

When Lennon’s Double Fantasy was released on November 17th 1980, I soon had a copy.  Probably under threat of a temper tantrum.  In the days that followed it was my soundtrack.  The needle on my turntable undoubtedly grew sick of the record, but I didn’t. 

The Crash

About a week later I was sitting on a curb at the side of the road listening to my Dad talk to the police.  We had just been in a terrible crash.  The other car ran a red light and hit us hard, probably at 30 to 35 miles an hour.  It never even slowed down.  No breaks, nothing.

Thanks to my Dad’s quick acceleration it struck us in the rear passenger side quarter panel.  He saw the danger from the corner of his eye.  I was sitting in the back seat by the door, just inches away.  I never saw it,  I was oblivious.

It was a frighteningly violent collision, and we spun around chaotically.  Glass was everywhere.  Miraculously no one was seriously hurt.  The offending driver was likely on drugs, as my Dad angrily told us later.  

I remember my Dad telling me “You’re lucky to be here”, knowing his last second acceleration likely saved my hide.  But as a rambunctious and fearless hell raiser who spent portions of each day airborne on my BMX bike, I took it in stride and shrugged it off.

The News

Then a week later, it hit like a shock wave.  I remember hearing it on a local radio station and it stopped me in my tracks. 

John Lennon was dead.  Shot and killed. 

Double Fantasy was still sitting on my turntable, where it had held court since I unwrapped it. 

I didn’t really understand death.  No one I knew had ever died, not even a family member.  Now someone who was important to me did. 

About a week later a quarter of a million people assembled in Central Park, Manhattan, in a massive outpouring of grief over Lennon’s death.  I sat in front of the TV watching people cry and mourn.  The anguish on their faces hammered it home to me. 

Look at these people, they know something.  This is real, he’s really not coming back.

I thought of the crash I had just been in, and how my Dad told me that I was lucky to be here.  I didn’t really know what that meant.  Now the reality of death hit home to me, and I cried too.

My cherished copy of “Double Fantasy”

John Lennon was gone, he’ll never come back.  I’ll be gone one day too.  If it weren’t for a split-second decision from my Dad, I might be gone already.

It was one of those moments in life when you realize how things are, when a fundamental and undeniable truth reveals itself.

Those three events, the album release, the car crash, and Lennon’s murder all in a brief few weeks solidified what death meant in my still developing brain.  It painfully showed me how cold fate can be, how quick the end can come.

Live Your Dash Well

In the poem “The Dash”, Linda Ellis notes that the line between a person’s birth and death dates on their gravestone symbolizes their entire life.  Your life one day will be a dash.

In the end our dashes aren’t about what we owned or what position we obtained.  They’re about how we lived and who we touched.  Financial independence is nothing but a tool to live a better dash. 

Right now you are the oldest you’ve ever been, and the youngest you’re ever going to be.

Go out and live your best dash.