…in time.

Late fall last year, I had my own “just one average night” sort of experience. Below is an excerpt from a correspondence in which I wrote about it. It is written the day after witnessing a semi slam into a series of cars that were waiting to merge onto a different intersate…

The breaking sun flooding in from the east through the rear window of my Honda, over my shoulder, revealing fingerprints on the windshield. Cool Minnesota morning. Windows down. The hairs on my arms up. Memories appear in first person: “My kid is a Cooper Honor student,” the bumper sticker on the car in front of me says. I am stopped on Interstate 394 waiting in a metered-merge lane for Interstate 494. Is cooper still a high school? I thought to myself. Didn’t it close? I am going to make my 8:00 AM meeting. I am relaxed, unconcerned about the morning congestion. I reach out for the stereo to switch from the radio to the cd player. I watch my hand as it finds the button on the dash.

BAM!

No screech, no scream. Just metal on metal. A silent picture show in my rearview mirror—a white semi-tractor with half its face ripped off. Its trailer rising up like the hair on the back of a cat. A car spinning toward the shoulder, another jammed forward into the middle lane of traffic. The look of horror in my own reflection. A pain in my back. I was not hit. Out of my car. Standing on the tarmac with my cell phone at my ear. The words of the 911 operator—the only thing tying me into the reality of the situation. The entire Interstate in front of me has come to a stop. Four lanes frozen in shock and sunlight. The glitter of broken glass is magical. “There is a physician on the scene,” the operator’s voice forcing itself into my head.

“What should I do?”

“Get back into your car. Get off the Interstate.”

“Should I leave?”

“Yes. Leave.”

Three minutes later I am pulling into a corporate parking garage, take the elevator to the fourth floor and walk into a conference room. I am now 5 minutes late. The meeting has started without me. The topic is how to best move large volumes of financial data from the Dallas office to the Minneapolis office on a nightly basis.

The next day I drive to work in a shroud of sadness—anxious as I squeeze between a cement truck and an eighteen-wheeler as I change lanes in the Lowry Tunnel. As I pass the scene of the accident, I slow to examine the skid marks on the highway. He did try to stop. I wonder what happened to him. Did he live? God, the recovery must be excruciating. Time is different today. I should have lunch with Adam. I shouldn’t waste a single moment. Who will I lose in a car accident? in an oxygen tent? in the night? in time.

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