Oh oh oy

What a day! One of my kids at work went loopy and broke most of the windows out at the house. Fittingly, I brought "The World Trade Center" to watch today. The kid also smashed or beat every car in the parking lot, except for mine. I guess bringing a movie every day and all those hours of Tony Hawk paid off. Really I think I just got lucky.

I have been lucky a lot in my life. Blessed, lucky, touched by angels. I was lucky enough to find M and then again as A. I got into a car accident when I was 17. To be more precise, I flipped my car through a telephone pole. I was hanging upside down in the car from my seat belt when the spinning stop, the slow motion spinning. I never believe in slow motion before that car accident, but it really slowed down. I thought about 1000 thoughts before I hit that pole, like "I hope I don't hit that pole" and "woah this is slow." I know, brilliant thoughts right?

I was hanging upside down and banging on the roof, because I was stuck in the seat belt. It was one of those that came on automatically, and I wasn't used to driving it because I was only borrowing the car from my grandmother. Therefore, I didn't know that there was a release button. I called my mom first, to tell her I had a chemistry test and would need to be picked up because I got in a wreck. Funny, I was just worried about the chemistry test at that moment. I was in the middle of telling her "Ma, just pick me up I can't miss this test," when I realized the car was on fire. I was banging on the roof, and could barely see the top of the ditch where people had gathered. A kind firefighter crawled in on his stomach and cut me down. He pulled me through the broken glass, and informed me he would normally need the jaws of life but this was an emergency. I thought the emergency was the fire until I got out of the car and realized that a live power line was draped a foot above my car. I climbed the steep ditch, thanking the firefighter who had crawled though that hatchback that I complained about everyday I drove that car. It was the only door not stuck.

I looked down at the poor crunched car and thought that the only part not smashed held me. The EMTs were there then, asking me to put on my neck brace and connecting me to the blue board that would lift me onto a stretcher. My mom ran by then, frantic and searching. I have never known that she loved me more than I knew in that moment. She was so happy when she saw me. Proud even, like I had done some great talented escape, when it wasn't me at all. It was that kind firefighter and something bigger than me. My boyfriend (the third high school one) came then. He ran a mile from where they stopped traffic. I will always love him for that. I knocked out the power to my whole town. Everyone got the day off from school. I got a a B on that chemistry test and I lived.

I lived to attend college, to meet A, to stand at the back of an aisle and walk towards him in a white dress. So I am very lucky, very blessed, and well watched over by whatever is up there in the sky.... And today my car windows didn't get busted.


Oh oh oy