It was Thursday night, May 27th, 2023, and we were on the Serpong toll road heading home. My husband was driving steadily at 60 km/hour in the middle lane when suddenly a car cut in front of us to exit towards Puspemkot Tangsel/Pamulang/Ciputat. It was a hair-raising experience that left us only inches away from potential disaster. The car was so fast that I couldn’t react in time, and I didn’t even register its color, type, or license plate number. All my husband could tell me was that it was a red hatchback.
Thankfully, my husband maintained his composure and didn’t panic or have any dangerous reflexes. I was filled with anger towards the other driver’s inconsiderate and reckless behavior, and the thought of how close we came to losing our lives passed through my mind. It was a near-death experience that could have been the end of our story. But thankfully, it wasn’t the end. This was actually the third near-death experience that I had been through.
The first one was when I went to a music concert with my little brother in my twenties, and we were trapped in a human pile. We were lucky to have escaped with just the loss of my shiny new phone. The second one was in my late twenties when my friends and I were on our way home after a long night of partying, and we barely escaped the Australian embassy bombing in Jakarta.
I read somewhere that God gives us exit points during our lifetime in case we want to leave this life early. And I believe that those three near-death experiences were my exit points, but I decided not to take them. Not yet, anyway…