Crashes & blessings

On the way home tonight, as I glided to a stop at the intersection right beside my brother's house, I watched as an SUV sitting at the stop sign in front of me was hit by a smaller car.  The air bags in both cards deployed, bumpers fell off, oil started gushing out of the engine, and lights were busted.  As I parked my car on the shoulder and walked toward the elderly folks who were emerging from the vehicles, I felt as if I were in an out of body experience.  My mind was racing but outwardly, I was calm and deliberate as I slowly walked up to the cars.  All I could think of was that horrible June 19th evening a few summers ago when my car was unexpectedly totaled as a friend drove it on our way to Texas.  I remember how, immediately after it happened, as we waited for the police and ambulance, all I had wanted were my parents to be there and to be home with them but I was all the way in Alabama with all sorts of decisions that had to be made and quickly at that.  I also remember being very thirsty and wanting a place to sit as the rain started to fall and we had to quickly unload 3 girls' luggage and all the other things I stored in my car.

So, as I approached these folks, I don't know what I planned on doing.  I am not very good at dealing with blood and other first aid/cpr type situations.  I am not one to get in the "middle of it all" but I felt compelled to try to help if I could.  I didn't have a plan to say anything or exactly know what to do.  Another passerby was running from car to car checking on folks and the police were already called.  What I wasn't prepared for, as I approached the accident on foot, was the sportscar that had also been hit, spun several times like a top, and then had flown into a ditch in a thicket of woods.  The man, who looked to be in his 30s or 40s stumbled out of his car in a daze, fell into the grass, pulled himself up, was trembling, then lay down on the gravel with his head in his hands.  At first I thought he might be drunk since he was mumbling incoherently and shaking so but then I realized he was in shock and reacting to all that had just happened.  His arm and hand appeared to be broken and immediately began to swell.

As I moved from one car to another before stopping to check on the elderly woman who was alone in her car, she asked me to help her find her insurance cards.  She was obviously in shock and disbelief and needed assistance calling her son.  I couldn't help but notice she had the same booster seat that is in my back seat for my niece and I said a quick prayer of thanksgiving no children were involved in this accident.  Before long, the first responders were at the scene, thereby trapping my car among the fire trucks and ambulances but I didn't mind since I wasn't going anywhere.  I had already been feeling a profound sense of sadness over other factors in my life in the last few days and this accident just added another layer of despair. 

However, in spite of the injured young man and completely destroyed car buried deep in the embankment wedged next to a pole in front of the trees, the badly shaken up elderly woman who didn't remember I had gently handed her the insurance cards, and the elderly couple who kept saying how new their car was and how did this happen because we weren't even going anywhere since we were at a stop at the stop sign, I felt a sense of thankfulness because all of the folks involved in the accident were alive and were moving around the scene.  At one point, I called my brother and asked him to bring water and paper towels.  He came by a few minutes later with the supplies, just after the first responders came to the scene.  I felt so helpless but at least the water could be used to wash off the blood on the elderly man's hand and the wife could quench some of her thirst.  There was nothing left to do once the first responders came so I made small talk with the woman as she told me about her daughter and son-in-law and her job before she retired.  Once she and her husband began talking to the police officer, I stood off to the side and silently prayed half a decade of the rosary before the woman came over to talk with me again.  Let us all keep these folks and their families in our prayers; I know I plan to finish offering up a rosary for them before bedtime tonight.

In spite of being able to provide some sort of distraction for the woman through conversation, what I really wanted to do was give the couple the St. Christopher prayer card I usually have on my visor in my car.  As I thought about going back to get the prayer card, I remembered that I had given it away in the spring.  Last March, as I returned to NC from York, I had stumbled upon an accident just over the MD/VA border that had occurred in front of a roadside stand where I always stop to give Dusty a quick walk and to buy some yummy kettle corn.  I pulled in as the traffic was being rerouted and took Dusty out for a quick walk as I observed the tow truck clearing the last of the wrecked vehicle.  It didn't take long to piece together a young girl had been the driver of the car as her Dad moved things from the damaged vehicle to his.  Then, I saw the mother standing off to the side trying to keep it together.  She looked like she could use a friend so Dusty and I wandered up to her.  I had the card in my pocket (why I grabbed it from the visor as I exited the car I don't know).  Dusty walked up to the woman's feet and wagged his tail at her.  She glanced down and smiled then asked to pick him up....to which I of course said yes.  With Dusty Shamrock nestled in her arms, she worriedly told me how she and her husband received the call from their daughter saying to come quick there was an accident.  I don't know how many cars had been involved since I had pulled up at the tail end portion of cleaning it up but the Mom was holding back tears as she said how grateful she was her daughter was okay even if the car wasn't.  I told her of my experience and that even if they can't see it now amidst the endless insurance calls, car shopping, making their money stretch, they will some day look back on this Sunday morning and be thankful it wasn't worse.  The woman agreed saying how thankful she was that her daughter was able to call them and it wasn't someone else having to make the call...or worse.  I felt compelled to give her the St. Christopher prayer card then because you see, even though the daughter didn't make it to her destination, she did have a safe trip even if the car had to be replaced.  The woman gave me a hug and thanked me when she read the words on the prayer card so I felt it had been okay to give it to her.

Reflecting on the words in the Motorist's Prayer, it took me weeks, if not months, before I was able to come to that realization during my own accident that involved a Dodge Ram plowing into the back of my stopped Saturn as a friend was about to turn left and pull it into our resting place for the night.

At the time, all I could think of was how

I couldn't afford a new (used) car,

how unfair it was that I wasn't going to get down to Texas to see friends & family,

how much my neck/shoulders/back hurt,

and I didn't have time to deal with all this when trying to work on portfolio artifacts and babysit, etc.



However, looking back, many blessings did come out of that experience and I hope along with healing, the folks in that accident and the one I saw tonight are able to feel a sense of comfort in knowing they were spared and protected, even if their cars weren't.