If You’re Alive

One of the terrific people I coach told me once that she has a “short, sure-fire test for determining whether your mission in life has been fulfilled.” I looked back, amused and waiting and she said simply, “If you’re alive, it hasn’t.”

I think about that every July 31 when one of these gorgeous summer days descends on us. I find myself quietly staring out at it, remembering the events and voices and faces and emotions of another July 31st in Colorado. It was the summer of 1976. Fifty years ago, now.

I’d spent the day with friends on a ranch at the eastern end of the Big Thompson Canyon, right where that rock-walled Canyon, and its River, push together into the near vertical cliffs of The Narrows before spilling into the farmlands of Larimer County, an hour northwest of Denver.

We laughed and played and ate our way through the day. But as we relaxed after dinner in our ranch house next to the river, something happened that changed our mood—and our lives—in a heartbeat. In the coming hours, my twenty-something self was jolted into lessons and questions that are still with me all these years later.

Several miles west (and a half mile up), massive thunderstorms had stalled through the late afternoon, pounding nearly a foot of water into the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains near Estes Park where the Big Thompson River originates. And a flash flood was building, with three to four thousand people in its path. With little time to spare, members of the Colorado Highway Patrol and officers from the local sheriff's office began to race the length of Highway 34, each doing their best to warn as many of us as possible.

One off-duty officer left his home to warn people. Just before 9:30pm, his car skidded into the dusty parking area near our ranch house. He stopped long enough to speak emphatically into his loudspeaker, “Get in your cars and leave. Don’t take anything with you. A flash flood is headed down the canyon. Go. Now.” And then he was gone, headed off to warn others.

Sparked by his urgency, we ran to our cars, jostling to make sure we had everyone. The rain arrived, along with the thunder and lightning. Someone shouted over the noise, “Go with the driver you came with!” And the last-minute shuffle became fateful for a few.

Heading down the gravel road away from the ranch, our cars reached a literal crossroads: Do we turn left and cross that old wooden bridge over the river and make a dash for the highway, heading east? Or do we simply turn right up that steep dirt road and reach the immediate safety of a high pasture? It was dark. I later learned that at the same time, nine hours ahead of me in Jerusalem, an old friend woke up with a start, praying for me. I'll always wonder about that.

As the first driver out in my old Volkswagen, I saw a figure in a yellow slicker directing me with a flashlight to turn right. I followed the direction and headed up that steep dirt road into the pasture. Three cars followed me. No one else that night saw the figure in the yellow slicker with the flashlight, and I still wonder about that too.

Other cars, just a few seconds behind us turned left across the old bridge. Two headed east.

Once in the pasture, we got out of our cars and looked down on the roof of our two-story house, and beyond it up the Big Thompson River. I remember earlier in the day my friend Marilyn observing smugly that in the Pacific Northwest, we would probably have named it the Big Thompson Creek. But as we listened and watched, lightning started to flash and rain to fall. Propane tanks were exploding. And within minutes, we heard it coming. A twenty-foot wall of water burst out of The Narrows, crushing the old wooden bridge and swamping the house as it roared by below where we stood. It carried on its crest cars, trucks, and trailers, most with their headlights still burning.

Minutes later that wall of water swept over a low point on Highway 34 a couple of miles away, taking with it our two east-bound cars, just as nine friends were thinking they were safely away. Two of the nine were able to pull themselves out of one car as it sank and were instantly ripped away and swept down the river.

In our pasture, we stood watching for a long time after the crest passed, both hoping and knowing. The thing is, a flash flood is just that, and then, except for the wreckage, everything becomes calm again.

The Big Thompson Flood destroyed homes, livestock, businesses, and most of Highway 34. And it took 144 human lives, including those of seven of our friends who had not been able to escape their cars. The two survivors, after a brutal tumble through the cold, debris-filled flood water, were both able to grasp and climb tree trunks, and to then hang on until the headlights of rescuers’ cars landed on them hours later.

Through the cold night in a ranch out-building, we listened to the radio, and though we had still to learn about our personal losses, we knew scores of people had died. Our questions as we hiked out the next morning were obvious: "Why me?" and "Why them?" Later, our two surviving friends returned to us and began to tell us their stories: of the final moments of kindness in the car as the water rose, of the ears of a young girl who heard a voice calling for help, and the hunch an old rancher that he should drive down near the river to check on his livestock, only to find in his headlights landing on a naked woman clinging to a tree.

The following morning, with our cars stranded, my friends and I found our way back to our larger conference site at Colorado State University.

In the days following, as the bodies of seven friends were recovered and identified, our group stayed together. In those days, we talked and cried and prayed and even laughed together ("the flood ripped all your clothes off!?”), we tested the easy theory that maybe God had simply taken the most gifted and gracious among us. On further reflection, there's probably more to it.

The more powerful questions that have grown important for me through the years are, “Now what?” And “Now how?” And “Can I live my life as a stewardship, as a gift? Can I live it with gratitude, generosity, honor, and grace—and even with a light heart?”

You know that woman I mentioned at the start of my story? If she’s right about the gift of still being alive, my mission in life is still being fulfilled now, fifty years on. Every day I get to ask some version of those powerful questions. I ask the brave people I work with—seems like everyone’s got some kind of flood story. And I keep asking myself too.

* Click here to listen to a tribute to Officer Hugh Purdy.