Nose fracture.

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone that gracious before in my life. And it reminded me, to always make the conscious choice to forgive, to extend grace- because grace is exactly what it is- giving someone else what they don’t deserve. Mercy, on the other hand, is witholding something someone else jolly well deserves.

Mercy and grace, I think I saw a glimpse of both that day.

I had to chase down an ambulance on my roadbike last Saturday. We had waited for about half an hour and the ambulance had got lost looking for us. So I set off to find it, to direct it to where we were. I don’t think I’ve accelerated that quickly on my bike to chase down a vehicle before.

Someone in my cycling group and another elderly man cycling had a head-on collision at the beach. A chilling screech of wheels colliding, bloodstained hands, a pool of blood on the ground and one nose fracture later, we had to call an ambulance.

And all the elderly man could say was, “It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m really quite fine. You were cycling, I was cycling… We both tried to avoid each other, and we both didn’t slow down enough. We’re both cyclists, we understand injuries are sometimes inevitable… please don’t feel bad.”

He said all that in a nasal twang while blood was gushing profusely from his nose, staining his hands and clothes and forming a steady pool on the tarmac.

“I’m so so sorry, Uncle,” said the other cyclist, obviously traumatised from the accident too. “I’ll pay for your damages and hospital fees. It was my fault, I was on the wrong side of the road.”

“It’s all right. You didn’t do it on purpose.”

Uncle Chris had every right to be angry, had every right to curse and swear and show self-pity, had every right to demand compensation for his damaged wheels belonging to his expensive Italian Conalgo roadbike. But the mild-mannered gentleman merely nodded and smiled.

“It’s all right, please don’t feel bad. You didn’t do it on purpose.”

In that smile as he took out his bloodstained dentures to spit, sniffling and trying to suck in the blood dripping from his nose, I think I saw what grace, and mercy meant.