What Now?

A Near-Death Moment and the Question That Refused to Let Go

“Grace is not a substitute for responsibility.”
— Dorothy Day

It was a normal Friday until it wasn’t.

It was Friday, October 14, 2016, at about 12:30 p.m. My coworker Reginald was driving our four-wheel-drive Nissan Patrol truck, and I was talking on my cell phone. Fridays are always busy at that hour in Haiti. School lets out early, and the streets quickly fill with students, parents, vendors, motorcycles, and traffic pushing in every direction at once.

We were driving through Pétion-Ville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince. I was distracted, absorbed in the conversation, paying little attention to what was happening outside the passenger-side window.

We slowed at a crowded intersection. Then the truck jerked. The clutch was released too quickly, causing the engine to stall.

I remember thinking, What did Reginald just do? 

Before the thought finished forming, he yelled, “Bese tèt ou!” (head down) and dropped down as low as he could. Instinctively, I pulled the phone away from my ear and turned toward the window.

A gun was pointed at my face, inches away.

I ducked.

The shots came immediately.

The glass exploded. The sound was sharp and concussive, louder than I could fully register in the moment. Bullets tore through the windshield and the passenger-side window, fired from more than one direction. Another man stood in front of the truck, slightly to the left, shooting toward the driver’s side. I caught a glimpse of him in the split second I was going down.

Our windows were tinted, common in Haiti for security reasons, and required special permission. A vehicle with tinted windows is often assumed to carry armed occupants, which likely explains why they fired so many rounds so quickly. If they hesitated, if they waited to see who was inside, they might be shot first. Their assumption was incorrect. No guns in our truck.

Earlier that day, I had been at the bank. This attack was a consequence.

After what felt like seven or eight shots, the gunfire stopped. An eerie stillness followed. My head was pressed down near the emergency brake, my body instinctively trying to disappear. That’s when I noticed blood dripping onto the console.

I asked Reginald, “ Ou pran bal ? ” Were you hit?

“Non.” Thank God he wasn’t.

It didn’t make sense. I didn’t feel pain. Why was I bleeding? I wondered if I was in shock. I stayed low, waiting, unsure what would happen next.

Then the passenger door opened.

A man stood over me, gun pointed directly at my face, shouting in Haitian Creole, “Ban m sak la ! Get manman ou!” Give me the sack! F**k you! His voice was thick with rage.

I thought about the bag. Inside was the thousand dollars I had just withdrawn to pay an Argentinian man who had spent a month training our team to make handmade paper from natural fibers. My passport. My laptop. My work documents. Receipts. Years of effort and identity compressed into one bag.

I remember thinking, I don’t want to give this up. Surely someone would intervene. The police. The UN. Another armed person. Surely this would end quickly.

Then another thought cut through the noise. Over the years, I had heard too many stories of people who were robbed and killed because they refused to give what was demanded.

You stupid idiot, I told myself. Give him the bag.

I pushed it out the door. The sound of my laptop hitting the asphalt made my stomach tighten. They grabbed the bag, jumped on their motorcycles, and sped away.

Slowly, cautiously, Reginald and I lifted our heads. The danger had passed. The world seemed frozen. People stood in every direction, staring. No one moved.

I stepped out of the car. My face was covered in blood. A bullet hadn’t struck me, but it had shattered the glass, sending fragments into my face and leaving shallow wounds that bled freely.

People watched in silence. No one rushed forward. Perhaps they were afraid. Perhaps they thought I had done something to deserve this. In Haiti, public violence is often assumed to have a personal backstory. Whatever they believed, they stood still.

Then a well-dressed, fit man, perhaps in his mid-forties, ran into the intersection.

“Come with me,” he said. “Let’s get the car off the street.”

He moved with calm authority. Once the vehicle was safely parked, he took us into his office directly across the intersection. His staff brought hot tea, a customary response in Haiti after something traumatic. They brought towels and washcloths and gently cleaned the blood from my face.

They called the police. The UN. The embassy. These people we didn’t know stepped in with loving care. The grace that just spared our lives was still with us.

As I sat there, another man entered the office slowly and looked at me for a long moment before sitting down.

“I watched everything from my office window,” he said. “I saw the gunmen fire multiple times at head level into your truck. I was sure whoever was inside was dead. Then I saw one of them open the passenger door with his gun raised, and I thought, If anyone is still alive, they are about to be killed.”

He paused.

“I can’t believe you’re sitting here,” he said. “It wasn’t your time. You have work to do.”

The businessman’s name was Patrice. We were in capable hands. He arranged to have our truck secured on his property and offered to drive us wherever we needed to go. He told me his vehicle was bulletproof and that I had nothing to worry about.

I told him I needed to pick up my two young children from school.

We returned to the busy streets, moving slowly among pedestrians, motorcycles, and cars. The school was only a short distance away. When we arrived, a staff member walked my children through the gate and helped them into the vehicle.

They were confused. Why were we in someone else’s SUV? Who was this man driving? Why did their father have cuts all over his face? They could sense that something frightening had happened.

I hugged them and tried to reassure them, explaining that something unexpected and scary had occurred, but that we were safe and everything was going to be all right.

We drove up the mountain toward home. Patrice pulled into the driveway of our home and guesthouse and walked with us up the steps to the front patio, where Merline met us. She immediately knew something was wrong.

We hugged. I shared what I could. We cried.

Patrice embraced us and told us to let him know if we needed anything. I will never forget how he came to our rescue at a moment when Reginald and I were so vulnerable.

That afternoon, holding my children and watching Merline’s tears, I felt an overwhelming gratitude I didn’t know how to contain. We cried because we were alive, because we had almost not been, and because the world around us carried wounds that rarely make headlines. I prayed for Reginald and me. I prayed for Patrice and his brother, Allen. I prayed for the men who fired into our truck, not to excuse what they had done, but because something in me could not stop seeing their humanity beneath the violence.

As the hours passed, the shock softened into something quieter. Relief settled in. I was still here. I would sit at my table again. I would hold my children again. And alongside that relief was a collective sorrow, because none of what had happened belonged to me alone. Patrice carried the memory of his wife’s kidnapping. My family had brushed up against a grief that almost became permanent. And somewhere not far away were two young men whose lives had likely been shaped by a hardship I can barely imagine.

Poverty is violent. It wounds the human spirit until violence begins to feel like a language.

As the day came to a close and the ordinary tried to return, I didn’t feel driven to explain what had happened or why I had been spared. I felt called to pay attention. A question remained, steady as a shadow, following me home and refusing to disappear:

What now?