It was a typical Friday afternoon, and as I looked up the clock indicated that, as ususal, I was running out of time. I was knee-deep in a variety of tasks, making a mess so I could get organized.
As the day had progressed, I had enjoyed an hour or two of “desk time,” answering emails, sorting through the paperwork, touching base with folks. General clean-up, and something that happens infrequently. Far too often meetings take up my time and prevent me from both keeping up and then getting ahead with my administrative responsibilities.
The phone rang, and it was my oldest son. His first sentence was, “We’re okay, but let me tell you what happened.” I braced myself for what might come next. This is not what I was expecting to handle on this particular Friday. The mind races with possibilities, dark possibilities.
Dakota was rather calm, and explained the reason for his call.
“We were on our way home from the zoo, and I was driving when the car in front of us stopped suddenly. I braked hard, and I was able to stop, but not before I nudged that car. Then we got hit from behind, rear-ended by two cars. There are ambulances here, and the police, too. Allie is on her way to the hospital – the firemen thought she might have injured her neck. Mom went with her, and I’m here with the other kids waiting for the State Patrol to come, because this is a state highway we’re on.”
“How are YOU,” I asked?
“Oh, I’m fine. We’re all okay, except for Allie, and she isn’t hurt bad, I don’t think.”
“Nobody else is hurt,” I wondered?
“Not us. Just the two people who hit us from behind. The lady is still in her car, a little Dodge, and the man who drove the pickup is hurt, maybe pretty bad. We pulled off the road ahead of them, and I can’t see back there very well.”
“How bad is the Suburban?”
“There’s hardly any damage, just a dent on the front bumper and the rear hitch got smashed in a bit. It is driveable. But the lady who hit us got pushed up beneath us, and her car is wrecked.”
“What about the guy you ran into?”
“Oh, we looked at his car, and the Suburban, and decided there really isn’t any damage to either one. He wasn’t worried about his car at all, and after we talked, he drove off.”
So much for my productive Friday afternoon! I closed the laptop, grabbed my bag and left the piles of paperwork in their messy state. I wanted to see my kids! Early rush hour traffic, along with road construction, made for a 40 minute drive to the scene. Along the way, I made a few phone calls. Within half an hour I knew my daughter was not injured seriously – the emergency room physician had already examined her and pronounced her to be fine. An appointment with our physical therapist had already been arranged for the next hour, just to be sure.
By the time I got there, the State Trooper was finishing his survey of the accident scene, the last ambulance had departed, and the tow truck was about to take the pickup truck away. About 50 yards ahead of that, past the broken glass, was the red Suburban, with the kids alongside it. They seemed calm enough, and a quick look revealed Dakota had been right in his assessment – the truck did not look too bad, and they were okay.
I poked my head into the vehicle, finding our youngest still buckled up in his car seat. The radio was on as the boys listened to an afternoon talk show host analyzing the latest news from the Middle East. The girls were looking at some books.
Apart from the place and circumstances, this might have been just another scene of the kids waiting – in a parking lot waiting for Mom to finish at the store, or for Dad to finish his conversation with someone. Nothing altogether unusual here.
Dakota filled me in on the situation and had already filled out the accident report, waiting for the Trooper to come our way. All was relatively calm. Except for the traffic that whizzed by at 50 miles per hour as we talked at the side of the road. And the knowledge that they had sustained a pretty hard hit, and everyone was relatively unscathed.
Whew. I was certainly glad that nobody was hurt seriously. What a relief! No blood. No injuries of note – to my family. I wondered about the other two drivers. I looked again and expressed my thankfulness to God for protecting my wife and kids. We’re okay, really.
Reflecting on the accident, and how my day was changed significantly with one phone call, I was reminded anew that we when we arise in the morning we simply have no clue about how the day’s events will unfold.
Life is a gift. I intend to live this weekend a little differently, slowing down a bit, looking into the eyes of my kids, smiling a bit more. It’s all a gift.
