So! Let me tell you all about the day i had! Saturday i had a super fantastic time with my family in Naperville and the children were wonderful and happy as usual and growing and just all around great. So! I get back home around 1 a.m. and get in the bed around 1:45 because i know that i have to get right back up at 6 to head to St. Louis to pick my sister and baby up from the airport. So i got to bed with this super fantastic feeling and wake with the same. i take a S.H.O.W.E.R. and a shower and get dressed and kiss and hug my man and off we go. It had been raining all night and was coming down pretty hard. So! We are on the drive to STL, making a stop at the rest area to do the do. The do was did and off we are again. We get to STL and are a little early so we just drive around looking at stuff. In our drive, we come across a car that was in a horrible accident still sitting in the grass wrapped around a tree. I comment to Chief that i am sure that it did not end very well for the driver of that car. The car had to be moved in order to get the person out of it because the driver side had become the passenger side and the front of the car was in the backseat. You had to see it to get the full breadth of what i'm saying, but use your imagination. So we stop at Walgreen's and got a snack and headed back to the airport. We blissfully get to the airport and collect our precious cargo and back to Chambanaland we go.
Sis regales us about the trip and how excited she is to be back home and see us and we are all excited to be together. It's still raining. Chief is driving and at this moment he is commenting about how people should accept the fact that you are who you are and do what you do and give reverence to it every time they see you and not try to "recruit" you to their way of thinking.
We hit a patch or water and begin hydroplaning. We are in the passing lane. There is a semi truck that we had just passed about 2 seconds ago, literally, that was now right in front of us because we are spinning around. We did two or three 360's, was turned head on into oncoming traffic, spun 360 again, Still hydroplaning. Chief let go of the steering wheel and the brake so that the truck could do what it was gonna do. We careened up the side of the highway, over the ditch, into the grass, BETWEEN (i capitalize this word because this is maybe the most important part of the whole story) two trees and landed softly in the hanging branches of another tree. We ended up sliding backwards in the mud and soaked grass,hitting one of the trees we had just passed thru, shattering the cargo door glass. All that happened in the course of around 6 seconds.
i was in the backseat with the baby. My mommy sense kicked in, and even though she was in the car seat tight, i still had my hand pressed to her chest so that she would stay securely against the seat. We finally came to a gentle landing. Everybody looked around making sure that everyone was OK. Chief jumped out of his seat and quickly crawled to the backseat to check the baby (he just that type of dad). Remember the semi truck? Well, him and another semi truck driver had now pulled alongside the highway and ran over to see if everyone was ok. i am sitting on the door, literally, because the vehicle is bearing the mass majority of the weight on the passenger side. i think if that tree was there to keep us from sliding backwards, the truck would have very well been on its side. Chief gets out to assess the damage. It's all MINOR! i'm sure you don't understand why i say that so passionately, but after the ordeal that we had just come thru, to have only 2 or 3 small dings in that vehicle was truly a blessing.
He goes around the vehicle making sure that if the weight inside gets shifted, that we wouldn't topple over and stood there was this look of awe. The space BETWEEN the trees that we had gone thru was about one foot wider than the whole width of the truck. Close your eyes and imagine that with me. The space between two immovable trees was only 12 inches more than the whole width of the vehicle. WOW!!! I'm not talking about trees that were planted three or four years ago. They had hanging branches! One of them was bearing the weight of a SUV to keep it from rolling backwards!! WOW!!!
Someone else must have called 911 because a local police officer comes along a little while later and asks if everyone is ok. He looked inside the vehicle and saw the baby in the backseat and asks if she is fine. By this time, i had gotten her out of the seat and checked her for cuts, scratches and such. She is her happy and bubbly self the whole rip never crying one time. The officer can't see me in the backseat because i am still sitting pressed up against the door. He doesn't realize that i there until he had been on the scene for more than 5 minutes. He walked the length of the truck and stood there with this gazed over look. Tears had welled up in his eyes. He got emotional because he saw the trees and the width of the truck and commented about 200 times that we were so lucky to be alive. That we had not hit the trees was a miracle. He goes back to his cruiser to call the State police and compose himself.
So, the other officer comes and calls the tow truck guy and they do the stuff they do. i would like to pause and give a BIG UP to the tow guy. He expertly and precisely executed how to get that vehicle out of the grass without it rolling over. So, BIG UP to the owner of King's Tow Service of Maryville, IL.
Now you really must understand that for everyone in that vehicle to walk away with every faculty they had intact was amazing. We were unscathed! After hydroplaning, gliding backwards into oncoming traffic, spinning 360s, running up the side of the interstate, between two huge trees and SOFTLY land in place was amazing. AND the most damage that was done was a shattered rear window. We are ever so thankful to God, Allah, Jesus, Buddha, Lakshmi, the virgin Mary and everybody else that people pray to to have walked away from that ordeal.
So many thoughts were going thru my head. So many "could haves" could have happened but the thing that was "supposed to" have happened happened. We could have suffered the same fate of the driver of the car we had seen less than an hour earlier. But we did not. The place i was supposed to have been i was at. The people i was supposed to have been with, i was with. The things i was supposed to see and feel and hear and touch and experience, i did. Overwhelmingly, i was with the people i was supposed to be with. My real family. The sister i would give my right arm to if she wanted it. The man we both love and admire was there making sure his girls were alright. i don't share a man. Anybody can do that. i love a man WITH another sister that loves him just as much as i do. It resoundingly puts into perspective that you should cherish the people in your life that are really down for you. i mean REALLY down for you. People who will block the bullshit. Those real "franchise players" that don't want to go anywhere and are willing to help propel you to greatness and that always want what's best for you. There are people that are around you just to say they know you but will cut you down and sabotage your shit all along the way. i don't want those people around me no more. To you i say, "kick rocks and keep it movin' ". Forward forever, backwards never.
And that's that piece!
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