God's Grace

I had to go to Gatlin Feed today. I've written about making the run to the feed store before. It's a routine thing, sometimes annoying, sometimes ordinary, sometimes absurd--but it's always routine. Most of the time, I head down the road to the rural highway, take a couple of surface roads, ride a few miles down the interstate to another surface road, and there I am. When I'm done, I usually head a little farther up the highway to hit Tractor Supply or Petsense or Walmart, then hit another surface road to the state highway to a different rural highway to surface roads home. Today, because I was running late to pick up a grocery order at Walmart, I reversed the process. That put me going past the chicken plant at the change of shift.

That's why I almost died.

I don't know if you've ever driven on a rural road, especially when the shift change at the only place of business that provides significant means of employment is occurring. People will drive like the white flag has just dropped in a NASCAR race to clock in on time. I, on the other hand, set my cruise control at one to two miles per hour under the speed limit, even if the devil is on my heels begging for one more round in the fiddle match. I was just passing the chicken plant when I saw someone in the other lane slowing down to make the turn into the chicken plant lot. In a "blink and you'll miss it" moment, I saw the gray sedan lurch out from behind them, coming immediately into my path.

Even traveling at 43 miles per hour, there was no way that I could brake and avoid the car that was less than two car lengths away. I turned my wheel hard to the right, hoping that I could turn it fast enough back toward the left to stay in the narrow breakdown lane.

I could not.

I put on my brakes, hard. In the far, far distance, I heard tires screeching on the road. Mine? Theirs? I'll never know. They did not stop. Neither did I. My vehicle left the road, careening down the twenty-foot embankment toward a drainage ditch, beyond which was a line of trees. The brakes were slowing me down, but I could see that I was going to hit both. I turned the steering wheel as hard as I could to the right. The car began to lean left, down the embankment. It was going to roll over. I felt it.

Please, God, I thought. Not today. I have dogs to get home to. I'm not ready to leave Dan behind.

The car came to a stop. It was leaning, but not rolling. I was unhurt. I was safe, at least for the moment. I heard dogs barking, people yelling. I didn't let go of the steering wheel. I couldn't. I knew that I would shake to pieces if I did. People in chicken plant gear came down the hill to ask if I was okay. I couldn't even call forth my defensive sarcasm that normally serves me so well, "Seriously," I wanted to say, "would you be?" But these were kind people, people who wanted to help me. I reassured them that nothing was broken, that I hadn't hit my head. A man was walking across the yard to my left, yelling at his dogs to be quiet. Then he saw the car. He broke into a run, right towards me. Another man, big and strong, came down the hill to help.

The first man, Jason, quickly assessed the situation. He assured me and the other man that the car was stable--I had convinced myself that the car would roll over if I moved, even though I was sitting on the downhill side and that made no sense at all. Jason and the Big Man (whose name I wish I had gotten) opened my door, retrieved my phone, lifted me from my seat, and set me down again. Both of them held me up, given that my legs were trembling and would not support me. They stood there with me until I could stand on my own. The other people faded into the background, leaving to cover their shifts, I suppose. But Big Man and Jason walked me across the yard towards the house.

"Don't be afraid of the dogs," Jason said. "They won't bother you." I just looked at Max, a friendly black dog the size of a Falabella and his two terrier-cross companions (Daisy and another shy dog whose name I can't remember). If I had to land in anyone's drainage ditch, it was at least someone who had dogs to comfort me.

"If I had known that there would be dogs," I said, "I'd have gotten the Milkbones out of the car." Jason's wife, Rachel, came out of the house at that moment, carrying a bottle of water and telling me that I had to come inside out of the heat, sparing me the need to explain that I always had Milkbones in the car for the farm dogs: no, I had not hit my head; no, I was not confused.

Country people. You have to love them. In moments, I was ensconced in the air-conditioned living room, with Max laying his head lovingly on my lap. Rachel was fussing over me while another woman, Blythe, made comforting comments on the other side of the room. Jason went back out for another look at the car, to make certain nothing was leaking or damaged. He returned with the assessment that if I could just back the car up a few feet, then point the nose down the hill, I could just pull it out from behind the ditch and the trees and be on my merry way.

Nope.

Not happening.

The car was a deathtrap and that's why I have AAA.

I still had to call Dan, however, to let him know what had happened. At that point I thought, Dan is good at backing up vehicles. Maybe he can do it. Because there was no way I was getting into the Suburban until it was no longer leaning. I'm just not built that way.

I could hear the air go out of Dan's lungs when I told him what had happened. He quickly assured me that he would be to me as fast as he could get the old van there. Jason went out to the road to make certain that Dan would find the right driveway. When Dan arrived, we just stared at each other in the awkward way that people do when nothing they say will seem quite enough.

"I'm glad you're all right," he said.

"Me too," I said. I handed him my keys and he went off to discuss the situation with Jason.

I went into the house again. I couldn't watch. I just knew that the car was going to roll over or slide backwards into the ditch or catch fire or something equally terrifying and ridiculous. However, in just a few minutes, it was done. The car was out of the ditch and into the driveway. Dan was fine. The Suburban was fine. I was fine. In another few minutes, I had said my goodbyes to Rachel and to Blythe and I was behind the wheel again. Putting that thing into Drive was like swinging back into the saddle again after the first time Duke bucked me off. I held my breath, waiting for the next thing to happen, and waited to pull into the road.

I am absolutely convinced that God answered my prayer. I will swear on a stack of Bibles that the car was headed right into the trees and that I felt it starting to roll as I turned it up the hill. I came to rest within a few feet of some very sturdy trees that would have totaled my car. Now, here's the punch line. Look at those pictures. See the blue sky? The forecast had been for storms. If the road had been wet, as it was supposed to be, then there would have been no stopping the Suburban's descent.

As for me, I'm fine. I'm a little sore, but I think that's more from the tension than anything else. I've felt worse after physical therapy for my arm. The Suburban is fine. No leaks, no ruptured oil pans, no broken axles, no flat tires, no hoses or wires ripped away from wherever they're supposed to be affixed. It's all good. We'll possibly have to get the alignment checked, but by some miracle I was able to drive away. The groceries? Well, there's some defrosted food that may not be able to be salvaged, but if we don't eat it, the chickens will. A little spoiled food in exchange for being alive?

Thank you, God. I'll take it.