A Split Second

I was traveling east on a country road after picking up my precious granddaughter Nattie B. It was a crisp winter day; new snow still gleaming white. The roads were clear, but the plows had left mounds and mountains every where. I rounded a bend to see a car pulling out of a driveway behind a mile high snow bank. I thought it would turn to the west to clear a path for me to go around, but instead it came to a near stop blocking both lanes. I sized up the space between the telephone pole and the car knowing that I would be heading into the possibility of oncoming traffic. Not enough room. The drivers side door of the other car, car B in the police report written up later, glared at me like a defiant pre-teen.

Plan B.

I applied the brakes deliberately, turned the wheel carefully and then, giving the engine more gas, aimed for the opening between the house on my left and the pole. There was a heavy thud but the Volvo, old and built like a tank, plowed through the wall of snow over the buried tree stump and into the clearing beyond. We glided really, snow flying over the hood of the car in a spray until the front end was buried and the car came to a stop.

Nattie never even cried.
"Why are we stopped in a snowbank gramma? ", she asked.

Car B, unscathed, drove a bit and pulled over and two teen boys jumped out and came running. They saw the little one and, only in rewind did I remember, the color drained from their faces before they heard her speak. They recognized me before I could think of their names. Sweet boys, wonderful boys; I immediately began yelling at them. "Get out of the road, get a coat on!" I bellowed as I reached for my cel phone.

Every fiber of my nervous and musculoskeletal systems went into shock. I trembled as I dialed Nattie's mother, my daughter, thinking I had to let her know we were OK though she had no reason to believe otherwise. I caught my self and switched the call to 911, still yelling at the boys who couldn't seem to move. I would be damned before I would let them get hit by a car now, after I had managed not to kill them with mine.

I could hardly hang onto the phone as I climbed out into hip deep drifts and got into the back seat to release the blessed five point harness and gather Natalie into my arms. I was trying desperately not to spill tears down her cheeks as I caressed her babbling self and tried to give our location to the operator on the other end of the line.

I knew we were OK, instinctively knew that all four of us had escaped harm, but my body wasn't buying it. I quavered and shook and gave the address as west instead of east of the main highway. The skilled voice on the other end just kept asking questions until he could figure out where to send the police.

The red and blue lights were flashing when Elizabeth arrived to gather us both up in her also trembling arms. I fumbled through the glove box knowing that all necessary paperwork was there but unable even to tell what papers to hand over to the officer. He was kind, and gentle and took what he needed from the sheaf I held out, then he took my hand so I could climb up over the snowbank toward Elizabeth who now held Natalie. She ushered us all to her car which beckoned, offering warmth and safety. Nattie declared her hunger reassuring both of us that she was, indeed, just fine.

The boys finally got out of the cold and into their own vehicle and I realized as a mother that I needed to reassure them, to tell them it had been an accident, that I wasn't yelling because I was angry but because I cared, but I didn't have it in me yet. That would come in a little while.

A neighbor came out and offerred to help. I had never gotten my one cup of coffee that day and I needed tea. Blessedly he went back inside and moments later came out with a steaming cup filled with the sweet warmth and caffeine my body so badly craved. I was trying to decide if my headache was injury or withdrawal, trying not to make it into something more than it was.

Elizabeth and I each made calls to assemble the family for extra comfort when we got home. Giddily I told Jeremy, my son in law, "You would have been so proud of me!" Jeremy is a mechanic and has no patience for poor driving skills and expected nothing less from me than that I would choose the safe path to avoid injury to his only child. He was proud but not surprised. I was astonished.

I had just a split second to decide. Just a blink of an eye and the story could have ended so differently. I had not had a phone in my ear, a cup of coffee in my hand. I had not been tuning in the radio or reaching for a cookie. My hands and my mind were free and in that split second my brain processed so much information. The ability to think and choose in that single moment astounds me still. It is a phenomenon.

Recently I turned sixty and my family made me a card filled with single words that each person would use to describe me. Deliberate was one of the words. Deliberate. In the aftermath of that split second, I felt deliberate. I chose, very deliberately, not to hit car B that, though I did not know it at the time of deciding, held those sweet teenage boys. I chose, deliberately, not to hit the telephone pole. I chose with minute deliberation to steer my course between the house and the creosote soaked timbers that would surely have killed us. I was deliberate in that split second, and yet.....

As the clock inches toward twelve and we stay awake to watch the ball drop, ringing in a new year, my heart sings out a song of thanksgiving.

I am thankful for Volvo's built like tanks.
I am thankful for seat belts and car seats.
I am thankful for soft, deep snow.
I am thankful for the innocence of three year olds and the grace and courage of young men who set aside their own fear and run to help.
I am thankful for hot tea with sugar and milk delivered by a stranger.
I am thankful for sons and daughters who comfort and friends who truly understand that trauma is not always something you can see.
Most importantly, I am thankful that in that split second, while I was deliberating, I was not alone.
Praise God and pass the Ice Cream for our safety. Praise God!
Oh, and Happy New Year!!! I am so very grateful to be here for it.