scary stuff

I recently completed half of a 3,500 mile solo road trip, and just an hour and a half short of my last destination, I had a really scary encounter on the road. I had been warned by several people of a hurricane on the move, set to hit Houston just as I was set to arrive. I knew there would be rain, but I thought nothing of it-- Houston has terrible weather all the time. The last time I drove home, some tropical storm or whatever was hitting the Gulf at the same time and I remember my drive through Lousiana as one of the hardest in the rain. The rains were so heavy, I could only see the taillights of the car in front of me. And I could only see the road for the taillights. That time, I was afraid. This time, I was not.

So I had been driving for days already. I left DC on Friday afternoon after work and drove to Columbus. Saturday I drove to Newark, OH. Sunday, I drove to Cincinnati. Monday, I drove the crazy 13 hour drive from Cincinnati to Edmond, OK (and let me tell you I was practically delirious when I got there... OK has boring tollroads!). And I was in my last 8 or so hours from Edmond to Houston. I had already been slowed down by two major accidents (one right after the other) in Dallas, that had literally reduced the speed on the interstate to a complete stop. I drove past both scenes, one more serious than the other, but I got very emotional when I saw someone being pulled from a mutilated vehicle on a body board. Scary stuff.

But I had passed all that and was SO close to home. I was in Madisonville, just before Huntsville, then Conroe, then the Woodlands on I-45. The rain had been drizzling for more than an hour already, more of a nuisance than a real danger, I thought. There was water on the road, but it wasn't raining hard, if you understand, the majority of the issue was really water being kicked up by the vehicle in front of you. Nevertheless, I admit I was not being as careful as I ought to have been. I was doing a lot of passing, (legally) to get out from behind 18-wheelers, so I wouldn't have to deal with their water. So I was doing a lot of driving in the left lane.

Once, before it happened, I felt my vehicle skate on water in the road. It was very quick, and I didn't lose control of my vehicle or anything, but it should have been a warning to go slower, under the speed limit because the road had bad traction in the rain. Instead, my heart beat a little harder, a little faster for a minute, and then I continued on as I was. And so when my vehicle hydroplaned and I actually lost control, I knew what was happening, but all I could feel was disbelief. And then, a wonder, was this it for me?

So I was driving in the left lane, having passed another 18 wheeler not too long ago. I hydroplaned on water in the road and the wheel of my car was wrenched from my hands. I skid counter clockwise, the nose of my car going first left, off the road, and then right, back on the road, and then left again, swinging me across both lanes of traffic and down into the grassy ditch on the right side of the road. There was no shoulder. I ended up facing the right direction, six or so feet below the highway, half in the oncoming lane of traffic on the farm road. I sat for a moment in shock before I could school my response: look for traffic on the farm road, shift into park, reach for my phone, dial my mother. I was shaking uncontrollably and I didn't know really whether I was fine or if I wasn't fine. Writing right now I can still feel the car swing, that feeling of being out of control. It's like the phantom feeling of a roller coaster after you've gone home and gone to bed. I can still feel it. With the memories, I have fear, but when it was actually happening, I wasn't afraid.

Eventually, after speaking with my mother, I was able to pull myself together enough for her sake to drive again. Very slowly, I pulled myself up onto the farm road and at a crawl, followed the farm road to a nearby gas station. The rain and wind had picked up so much so that when I got out of my car to check, under the awning of a gas station, I was pelted with water droplets anyway. Miraculously, the vehicle was completely unharmed. I was completely unharmed. After I hung up with my mother, I let myself have a good cry, as my mind began to wonder at how I had been saved from how very badly this could have been. I-45 was full of construction, and before the rain got heavy, I had seen construction crews packing up on the road. What if they had still been there? What if I had injured or killed a construction worker? What if there had been concrete barriers on the road? I would have smashed into them, been in the way for other vehicles. What if there had been signs? or blockades? or parked vehicles on the side of the road? What if there had been vehicles in front of or behind me? What even happened to that 18 wheeler I had just passed? The ways in which my misfortune could have resulted in true misfortune took my breath away.

And now, too, I wonder at my response. This was not the first time I have faced possible death. When I was nine, I unknowingly came very close, but an exploratory surgery in the nick of time saved my life. Again, more recently, when I lay in bed delirious with fever, I thought that it could have been it for me. An emergency evacuation to medical care would not have saved my life if I had dengue hemorragic fever, instead of dengue strain A. And now. On the road. So easily, life can be taken away. So quickly, we could reach our end. I think if that had been it for me, I'd be ready, but I'm not volunteering. There are so many things in life I still want to do! And so many things I feel that God has set before me to do, which I accept, whether or not I am yet excited about doing them. I am overwhelmed by God's desire to save me, again and again, from my own lack of care-- really recklessness with my own life. How little respect I have had for His creation of me!

So that is the complete accounting of the incident on (and off) the road. Let this be a lesson to all, and not only to me, that we can be better stewards of ourselves. Being careful on the road is a whole new facet to self-care I had never considered. But we cannot hope to care for anyone or anything well if we cannot first care for our own lives.