I’m Not Lucky, I’m Blessed

Today, I almost got into THIS (http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_17894539) car accident.

I was driving Southbound on 880 behind a large pick up truck. This means I couldn’t really see what was going on in front of the pick up truck. We were on the second lane on the freeway, the one right next to the carpool lane.

Suddenly, out of the left-hand corner of the front end of the pick up, I see a red car TURN to the left. The pick up hit the brakes and so did I. Everything that was on the seats of my car flew off, falling under the dash.

A bluish (?) car that was driving on the carpool lane, slightly behind the pick up truck (right NEXT to me) slams into the red car that was now perpendicular to its lane. BOOM!

The sound is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. It’s not like the movies. There are no screeching tires or crumpling metal. Just a large BOOM! The cars split apart from the impact, glass appears seemingly out of nowhere and shatters. The red car flies right back onto our lane, right in front of the pick up truck.

It bypasses the truck and continues it’s trajectory onto the lane on my right.

By then, the truck picks up speed and moves ahead and out of the danger zone.

The red car SLAMS into the car on my RIGHT. This time, I don’t hear it. Everything inside of me is telling me that I am next. The red car is going to ricochet back towards my lane from the impact. Everything feels slow and tight and almost tunnel-vision-like.

All this time, the traffic on the freeway is still moving forward. All this time, I am still driving forward.

In what could only have been a split second motion, I swerve onto the carpool lane, right in front of the crumpled car. I keep swerving until I almost hit the center divider. Then I hit the accelerator forward.

The red car slams into the center divider RIGHT BEHIND MY CAR.

My arms are so tight. My thighs hurt from controlling the amount of pressure I am putting on the accelerator. I knew that I could not hit the brakes despite what everything inside of me said because all the quick turns I was making would have either spun me or flipped me over, too.

When I look at the rear view mirror, there’s carnage. I’m the last car out of there before traffic was blocked.

I’m shaking and I feel sick, but I keep driving.

I had an appointment to keep.

I was going to church, for my first Sacrament of Confession and Reconciliation with the Church in over a decade.

When I called my mom from the parking lot of the church and told her, she could only cry and tell me that God must have watched over me. When I told the priest what had happened, to explain why my hands were clammy and cold and shaking, he looked sad and wizened all at once. “Perhaps, Child, he knew you were coming Home to Him and kept your path safe.”

My friend, CCop joked that my ninja reflexes must have kicked in.

Any way you want to look at it, I was saved. A car in front of me. A car to my right. A car to my left. 70 miles per hour. I had to have been blessed.