I struck a moose on the highway, and my life is better for it

The moose was thrashing in the middle of the road. Its legs flailing to right the rest of its broken body. I tried not to look as the kicks slowed down and eventually stopped.

It was dead.

I killed a moose, and now I was standing in the road frantically waving for help. I was in shock. I had no cellphone. I wasn't wearing pants.

This was not how I expected my day to go.

Just minutes from home

It's been one year since I collided with that moose but I still think about it every single day.

It was a bright beautiful evening. I was on my way from my home in Pasadena to Corner Brook to perform in a dance recital.

It had been years since I had danced on stage. I was so excited, I had worn my costume to the show instead of changing there. It saved me time — and the embarrassment of squeezing my 38-year-old mother-of-two body into tiny black shorts and a tied-up white shirt in front of all the other dancers.

But when I made that decision, I didn't anticipate getting into an accident on my way to the show. I will never forget the look on that stranger's face when he pulled over to help.

He was concerned for my well-being and asked if I was hurt, but as the wind blew open my long, beige trench coat, he was too polite to ask the obvious question: "Lady, where are your pants?"

Despite that, the biggest shock came when he looked at my car. It was practically pristine. 

"Is that your car?" he asked. I told him it was.

"And was the moose already dead on the road when you hit it?" 

A lot of luck

It was not.

The moose was standing directly in front of me when I came up over the hill. I tried to brake, then felt the car heave up. Then there was a loud bang. 

I had knocked down and driven over a moose in a 2012 Honda Fit, and I was completely unscathed. 

Aside from a bump on the fender and a loose wheel-well liner, my car was fine. The only connection between my vehicle and the bloody carcass on the road was a tuft of moose fur stuck to its undercarriage.

I feel so guilty that I killed that animal but I am immensely thankful for what it taught me.

When I tell people this, they always look at me skeptically. Am I sure no one hit the moose before me? Am I sure it wasn't already lying in the road?

But I am sure. There were no other cars on the road and that animal looked me straight in the eye, as surprised to see me as I was to see it.

I don't know enough about physics to explain how my car and I remained largely unharmed, and I am not religious enough to say there was a guardian angel near me that day. I just know I am incredibly lucky.

Over 15 years in journalism, I've covered enough moose accidents to know how this story could have ended. In many cases, it would have been with the Jaws of Life freeing me — with broken bones and a face full of glass — from a mangled wreck, followed by a long and difficult recovery. But my story also could have finished with a flower-filled funeral and my husband raising two children on his own. 

Yet here I am one year later, with the rare gift of perspective without tragic consequence. 

I feel so guilty that I killed that animal, but I am immensely thankful for what that collision taught me. 

I give my kids piggyback rides because I can still use my legs. I read them bedtime stories because I wasn't blinded by shards of glass, or left unable to read by a brain injury.

I learned that everything I love in my life is possible only because of a fluke.

You don't know what awaits you when you walk out the door each day, so relish every moment — and for goodness' sake, don't forget your pants.

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