A Dash Of Life

A Dash Of LifeIt 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.

A Dash Of Life

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.

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Dave @ Accidental FIRE

I reached financial independence and semi-retired in my mid-40's through hard work, smart living, and investing. This blog chronicles my journey and explores many aspects of personal finance including the psychological and behavioral factors that drive our habits.

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20 Responses

  1. Wow, what a great post! How amazing of your Dad to make that split second decision.

    “Financial independence is nothing but a tool to live a better dash.” Quite possibly the best sentence you’ve written on this blog. Thanks for such an inspiring post!

  2. Great post and thanks for sharing. Never know when our dash will end.

  3. I remember that album well. My mom bought it, being a longtime Beatles fan. But the hits off that double were constantly on the radio. Watching the wheels go round and round — good stuff. I also remember when Lennon was killed, but I wasn’t even 10 then, so I couldn’t process how big a deal it was — how much he had affected so many lives throughout his short life, but amazing career. Great reminder to grasp a hold of every day, not get blinded by long term goals.

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      It’s such a great record, even the avant-garde Yoko songs which sound weird at first grew on me. That was my first exposure to avant-garde music, and it challenged me. “Watching the Wheels” and “Just like starting over” are my two favorites.

  4. Xrayvsn says:

    A near death experience can certainly change your perspective on life. It is scary to think a few seconds or inches different could have had an entirely different outcome.

    Good point about life being a dash between birth and death. We don’t know how long that dash is going to be but it is inevitable that it will end. Don’t waste it because you don’t get another.

  5. no wonder you hate cars and driving. it seems like all you got was the negative end of the automobile meat grinder. you’re right, you just never know if today might be your day. might as well have some laughs and maybe be nice to somebody.

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      Oh there’s more, I’ve been hit 7 or 8 times, none of which were my fault. This one was only the second worst…

  6. My near death experience forever changed my outlook on life. Facing the end definitely forced me to think about every minute of life.

  7. Great post. And to quote Lennon, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” It makes me think of how some people are so focused on becoming FI that they aren’t enjoying life right now.

    Another great Lennon quote was from his school days. “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.“

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      Lennon had so many great quotes. When you see those interviews with the fab-4 they were all so witty for their age, but Lennon and Harrison especially. Always a funny quip or quote, right on the spot.

  8. Thanks for sharing your reflection on a moment in time that impacted you decades ago. I had a similar thought on our lifelong path with our time on this planet yesterday and shared the following on instagram.

    We all have two lives. The second one starts when we realize we only have one. — Confucius

  9. Travelin'Dad says:

    Great post! A little more chilling than your usual content, but I’ll keep the dash in mind. As MMM says, driving is the single most dangerous thing we do every day. (Well, that, and walking and biking on roads next to car drivers who are both speeding 20 miles over the limit and texting.) One of our close calls with a collision that surely would have been fatal happened in a storm in Kentucky, when a large tree slammed into the road immediately in front of the family car. I maintained speed rather than slamming on brakes, and we saw the tree bounce hard, just enough for us to slip under it before it landed a second time. “Wow!!!” we all said, certain that if we had come to a zero-stop at that speed, well…

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      Holy smokes that sounds incredible. You are seriously lucky. Once on a group bike ride we saw a car up ahead of us just miss getting crushed by a huge tree on a windy day. The power of the tree hitting the road was so strong we could feel the ground shake. It scared the crap outta me.

      Thanks for stopping by!

  10. Dr. McFrugal says:

    I love this post! We should all go out and live our best dash! 🙂

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