The film After Life asks, “If you could choose only one memory to hold onto for eternity, what would it be?”

The question is like choosing a favorite among your children—so after some consideration, I flip it around. “If I could choose only one memory to forget for eternity, what would it be?”

My first thought is…”Only one?” The second thought, because it’s snowing is, “This one.”

I was the assistant editor of a regional boating magazine, and we worked out of a small house in a commercially zoned district on a residential peninsula. My boss, Dick, had been an advertising sales representative for a Washington newspaper—then bought a yachting magazine and became a full-time publisher. He was an affable guy, good at generating advertising revenue to fund us, and perhaps 7 years older than my very young self. This was my first salaried job in the writing world, and I wanted to do my best, even though the publisher occasionally pointed out that 23-year-old English majors were as replaceable as oxygen. The cottage was old, with offices that had been bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a small tree-lined parking lot in the back from which you could see Spa Creek. I loved my sunny spot in the front window, where I edited stories about living and boating on the Chesapeake.

One January afternoon, while we worked on the bluelines, it started to snow. It had already snowed earlier in the week, and the drifts were high. The little parking lot had been plowed with all the snow heaped along the perimeter, and now more snow was falling steadily throughout the afternoon.

I was busy making sure there were two “m’s” in accommodate, that we had capitalized “Eastern Shore,” and that no feature writer had referred to the lines on a sailboat as “rope” when Dick walked over to my desk and stared out the window next to me.

“It’s really piling up out there,” he said. “I’m thinking that if you’re going to make it home tonight, you might want to get going now.”

I looked out and saw he was right—the pavement on the street was already deep in snow, and there were no plows in sight. I had driven our Opel GT to work that day—a small, two-seater, low slung sportscar we had named “Adam Opel” for no other reason but that people sometimes name their cars stupid things.

I gathered my ski jacket, boots, and purse, said goodbye to Dick and Joe, our art director, and headed out into the storm. The Opel was already just a shapeless, snow-covered mound, and it took me a while to get the windows clear. Dick was watching from the office kitchen as I worked, and I very much wanted to demonstrate how competent I was. It was kind of a big deal to me—being competent– for instance, I disdained offers to escort me to my car alone at night after dinner with friends, and I stacked my own firewood. I don’t know why but I felt a fierce need to be unneedy. (Oh dear God. Hello Mom.)

I opened the car door, tapped the snow off my boots as best I could, and clambered in. I started the engine and let it warm up for a minute. But to get out of the lot, I had to turn the car around—pulling up and reversing—and with each maneuver, I was backing right to the edge of the drifts.

I am a born romantic—I have imagined fainting in a stranger’s arms, and I’ll admit that there have been times driving a stick shift (see aforementioned reference to competence), out on the open road, music blasting, sunroof open, that I have imagined a movie camera rolling as I downshifted around curves radiating a Julia Roberts’ smile—I know, I know, you’ve never done this….

But in reality, having people watch me behind the wheel made me excruciatingly self-conscious. I was working hard to get out of that lot undeterred by a blizzard—when suddenly I couldn’t see well. Something was wrong with my eyes. I blinked several times and realized it wasn’t my eyes; the car was filling up with blue smoke. It was getting bluer by the minute. Confused, my last conscious thought was that I had to get out of the car immediately. I felt for the door handle, leaned into it, passed out and fell just as the door swung open. The last thing I heard was Dick yelling to Joe, “Get Laura! I know what’s happening!”

When I came to, I was being carried by two men I wanted to impress, and not like this. I was the ragdoll between them as they staggered through the snow under the extra weight of my winter clothes. And here’s where this went so wrong.

I came to almost instantly.

I was aware before I opened my eyes that I was the unwieldy burden being hoisted akimbo between two men I’d only shaken hands with and I was so embarrassed I just kept my eyes shut! Like a kid pretending to be asleep. And the longer I kept my eyes closed, the worse it got. “I’ve seen this happen,” I heard Dick say, “She packed the tailpipe backing into the drifts—good thing she was still in the lot.”

Oh! I thought, always intrigued to learn something new. So, that’s what happened to me! 

Should I open my eyes now? Would it be more awkward to regain consciousness lumbering up the steps or when they lay me on the couch? Maybe I can just die and be done with it.

I’m a member of a special interest group that studies the research on near-death experiences, which nearly always include encountering an unconditional love of indescribable depth.

This was not that. Or was it?

How fortunate I was not to be the last to leave the office that day, that someone was looking out for me.

That someone always is.

Laura J. Oliver is an award-winning developmental book editor and writing coach, who has taught writing at the University of Maryland and St. John’s College. She is the author of The Story Within (Penguin Random House). Co-creator of The Writing Intensive at St. John’s College, she is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction, an Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, a two-time Glimmer Train Short Fiction finalist, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her website can be found here.