An Adventure I Hadn't Planned On

I had a rather adventurous day. After a quick grocery trip this morning the kids and I headed over to Lighthouse Harvest to volunteer some elbow grease. We were about two-thirds the way there when I heard an odd scraping noise coming from the car in front of us, or so I thought. Until I realized that the scraping noise was coming from my van.

I pulled over and asked Josiah to hop out and take a look. He said, “It looks like our whole exhaust system is on the ground. So I got out to check for myself just how bad the damage was. Sure enough, our exhaust system was laying on the ground, though still attached in the front. I carefully turned the van around and parked in the church parking lot we'd just passed. Then I locked the doors.

The kids and I walked the 4 miles home. Half the trip home there were sidewalks, but the cars race twenty or more miles over the speed limit and don't pay attention to anything. I had to remind the younger two not to walk close to the road a couple times. As we neared the stop light on West/Lake and Carpenter road I told them, “See this is what I mean about being careful.” The guard rail had been smashed by a speeding vehicle. After that they all walked a little farther away from the road without any further warnings.

I complained at Josiah as we walked. “Why is it that every time our vehicle has a problem I'm the one driving? Why is it never Jason driving? Why is it that it always happens when I don't have service on my phone? He's known this needed fixed, but no...” and my rant continued like this for about four blocks. Poor Josiah listened patiently to my complaints and then with wisdom beyond his age he said something to the effect of, “We need to realize that this is all just temporary.”

And then I didn't complain any more. My focus had gotten off of the important things. I don't need my day, my life to be perfect, to be thankful. I can thank God for so much. The car didn't blow up. The kids and I all have two working legs so that we could walk home. He got paid today so we should be able to pay for the repairs that will be needed (I hope). Not sure how we will afford a whole new exhaust system, but God knows what we need before we even need it. So I can trust Him to take care of everything.

Well, we all made it home in one piece. So I woke Jason, he worked last night and had to work tonight. I asked Jason to arrange for a tow and repair job. We were fortunate enough to find someone who could do the work today, but this meant that I needed to walk back to the van to give the tow driver our key. I walk 10 miles every day, today would just be a slightly different, slightly more busy path then I usually take. It wasn't really a huge ordeal in relation to exercise.

As I was walking to the van I came across a bright red sporty car pulling out of Rite Aide on Lake Ave. The car was at a full stop and cars were passing both ways. So I proceeded to cross on the sidewalk. As I was half way across in front of the car the driver pulled forward. She hit me with her car. The force of the grill hitting against my left leg and arm lifted me off the ground. I'm not sure how high but high enough that neither foot was touching the ground for what felt like 5 minutes, but was likely only a couple seconds. I fell forward onto the hood of her car and hit it with my right hand as I was yelling, “STOP!, STOP!”. She kept going, pulling right into on coming traffic, as I was on the hood of her car! My left hand and leg were pinned to her grill and I yelled “STOP!” a third time.

A transit bus was picking up passengers not 50 feet from us and he laid on his horn. It was then that she stopped. She was halfway into traffic when she finally put on the brake. Another car on the opposite side of the road honked his horn and flashed his lights to inform oncoming traffic to stop as well. There was traffic passing in both directions, but the other vehicles were paying attention to the road and no car ran into her.

Once she finally stopped I got off the hood of her car and went back onto the sidewalk. She also backed into the parking lot in that moment.

My veins were pumped full of adrenaline at this point. My heart was racing and I was really freaked out. It was then that I began to yell at her. Not so much in anger as from fear and frustration. I yelled, “You could have killed me. Get off your phone. What were you thinking!?! Get off your phone! Don't ever drive and talk. Don't you know you nearly killed me. You could have killed yourself. Don't you know how dangerous that is?” At that point she still had her cell phone in her left hand.

Her face was white as ash. She didn't say a word. Then I guess she dropped her phone in her lap or something because she put her head in her hands and I could see that she was crying.

I then said, no longer yelling, “I don't have any broken bones” half to her, half assessing my condition. I said, “I didn't hit my head.” More of a question then a statement. “No, I didn't.” I wasn't yelling anymore, but I was speaking loudly.

I turned and started to walk away. I had no intention of making her pay for hurting me. I was okay, shaken but okay. Then looking at the driver one last time I said without any anger and much more calmly, “Don't ever talk on your phone and drive”.

I walked down the road a bit. The transit driver stopped me as I passed. He said to me, “Are you okay, miss?”

I smiled faintly. “I think so,” I said, “bit shaken is all.”

He said, “I saw the whole thing. It was entirely her fault. And no you didn't hit your head. But you'll be feeling that tomorrow.”

As I walked another block or so I began to realize what had just happened. I began to realize just how close I'd come to a much worse situation. And I began to thank God for his protection. And my eyes began to water a bit. My body was still full of adrenaline as I walked three times as fast as I'd been walking the final mile to my van.

When I finally got to the van, the tow driver was already waiting for me. I told him my ordeal, still reeling from it and he suggested that he take me home after he dropped off our van. That's not typically something AAA would do. He also advised me that we did not need a whole new exhaust system, but only a new muffler. Which would, no doubt, save us quite a lot. The mechanics at the shop looked and agreed, yes they would likely need only to repair the muffler itself. I said, “Oh, thank you God.” The tow driver smiled and said he'd not heard it phrased that way before. But it wasn't a phrase I said, I really was thanking God.

The tow drive talked to me all the way home from the shop. He talked about his wife, his kids and his own vehicle mishaps that he'd had over the years. And my racing heart began to relax. As I stepped out of the tow truck, I whispered a blessing over him and his family.

Two hours later the shop called for us to pick up the van. That was the fastest repair job I've ever been aware of. Though I was a bit stiff from the days events I walked the 3.5 miles to the shop to pick up our van. I was extra careful crossing parking exits. In fact, I went around every car that was stopped, just in case. I prayed as I walked. I prayed for the driver who'd hit me, that she would be blessed, and that she would learn a lesson and be more wise in her driving choices. I prayed for the tow driver and his family, who also happen to be neighbors I'd never met. I prayed for the shop keeper and the mechanics who worked on our van. And I thanked God again for his many blessings in my life.

And now as I get ready to sleep I can feel all the muscles in my body tense and achy. Over the last several hours I've tried to busy myself with other things so that I didn't relive the very frightening reality that I experienced. I know that it could have been a disaster today.

When I came home Jason said, “You could have been killed.” I said, “Well that wouldn't have been horrible, then I'd be in heaven. I could have been maimed, that's scary.”

So I guess if there is any moral to this story, it would be... Be thankful for the good, and the bad. Be thankful for every moment because, “...this is all just temporary.”