How That Time My Boyfriend Could Have Died Changed Everything

Or, how I found out that love is a miracle, all on its own

Do you know that time of the year when everything smells like warmth and rebirth?

Well, it was that time of the year, and the year was 2016.

My boyfriend and I had been together for three years by then, but things were starting to not look so good anymore.

Not because we didn’t love each other anymore (or any less) but because a lot of practical problems just kept piling upon us.

We were attending different colleges in different locations at that time, so our relationship was semi-long distance, which means we only got to see each other for a few hours one or two days a week.

Plus, around that time, something new that I now can’t even remember had just come up, making us feel more crashed than ever since it would have meant less time spent together.

So, at that time we really were in the midst of reconsidering the very basis of our relationship, trying to figure out if love was enough to stay together despite everything.

It all happened on a Saturday afternoon.

We were supposed to see each other, I was waiting for him to come to my home. He was late, but I didn’t think much about it, I just kept doing my thing, thinking he would eventually appear.

Then, my phone rang. It was his number. “This is weird,” I thought.

I picked up.

He told me he had been involved in a car accident but reassured me that he was fine and was being put into the ambulance, headed to the hospital. Completely shocked, I rushed to my car and headed there.

While driving, I passed through the crossroad where the accident took place, and I saw his car, which had been hit by another car, whose driver decided to just drive away, leaving my potentially injured boyfriend there, alone.

The car was destroyed. All of the windows fractured, glass shattered everywhere; the passenger side, which was where the other car had hit, was completely crushed.

The only spot left untouched was the driver’s seat.

That sight is still, to this day, the thing most close to a miracle that I’ve ever seen.

That was the moment I actually realized how close he had been to, you know, die.

From that second, I started crying and I kept desperately crying all the way down to the hospital, considering how my life would have looked like without him, how my heart would just have been empty, void, a useless piece of meat, how I would have felt desiccated and dead.

Then, I arrived at the hospital, parked my car in the ambulance-reserved lot, and ran through the emergency entrance doors, directly into the emergency room. I went through the staff-reserved doors and finally saw him.

He was there, laying on a stretcher, not a bruise on him, as chill as they come.

I went to his side, I can’t even remember what I said to him, he reassured me once again, then a doctor arrived, and nicely told me I had to go back to the emergency room. Which, my face covered in snot, I did.

There, I sat for what looked like hours, keeping thinking about how lucky my boyfriend and I had been, and what could have happened.

I just kept crying, even after seeing that he was perfectly fine, keeping ruminating about all of the If onlys, and how useless and little all of our struggles were compared to the biggest If only of all.

Is distance really a problem, as long as two people have each other, and are in love?

Our daily struggles to see each other are really that big of an issue, as long as two people want to see each other, and are ready to sacrifice other little things in order to do that?

And, in the end, is being together all the time really the most important thing? Or, maybe, the most important thing is us and the one we love being safe and sound, and in love?

All of the minuscule issues and struggles a couple faces daily just turn from the dimension of a mountain to that of a grain of dust, when we face something really, really devastating, as the perspective of losing the one we love more than everything is.

Finding someone we love, respect, and feel inspired by, who loves, respects, and feels inspired by us back, is a miraculous thing on its own.

Anything else, all of the complications and issues we build around that precious miracle, is just useless, pointless, junk.

Love is what matters. Care and respect are what matters. Cherishing each other every single day, whether close or distant, is what matters.

After that day, everything changed for the two of us.

I don’t know how, but it just did.

Bad things and struggles didn’t stop happening to us or our relationship, but they simply didn’t look that big, severe, or important anymore.

They looked so little, compared to what could have been.

Because, in fact, they were. They were and had always been little.

No problem really was important or relevant anymore, as long as we had each other and loved each other.

In a completely unconscious way, our mindset completely shifted.

Every problem was a non-problem: distance was a non-problem. Being unable to see each other even when we were in the same city, for the most absurd, random reasons (something that would have made me mad before), was a non-problem.

All I knew was that everything I needed was for him to keep hugging me and whispering “My love”, as he did after coming out of those hospital doors, perfectly sane, and walking on his own legs.

Now, five years later, we’re still together, living together, being there for each other, loving and caring for each other no matter what.

Because for us, in the end, love was enough.

© Francesca Dallaglio, 2021