RETURN TO THE SCENE

Running my route today I came up to an intersection that looked all too familiar. It was a little over a year ago I was going through the same intersection with the green light when some Oakie from Muskogee ran the light and t-boned my service van. Today I crossed this street with much trepidation and made it though safley.
This triggered the memory of what happened last year when I was between sugeries and me and Jojo were attending her uncle's funeral in Kentucky.
I wrote the following narrative last year for Facebook, but I wasn't blogging then so this won't be a rerun. Well except baby sis used it in her blog. Hey can I sue her for plagerism? I gave her permission so I probably don't have a case

"This is how quickly it can all change. We were in Brownsville KY yesterday at the showing for my wife's uncle. I was not feeling well so JoJo was taking me back to her mom and dads place to rest. I had also just been informed that my old buddy Kenny had just lost his mother and was trying to figure out how... we can make both funerals, my mother had just lost her cousin who lives in California and I was feeling bad for his family also.

We pulled out of the parking lot and started to cross Green river bridge, which is about 1/3 mile long and 200 feet above the river. We were still in sight of the funeral home doing about 30 mph when a white truck swerved around us doing at least 80 mph. There was a Brownsville cop on the bridge heading in the opposite direction of us and the truck, he stopped and turned on his blue lights the white truck looked like he was going to hit the cop head-on when he suddenly jerked the wheel and got back in his own lane in front of us and slammed into the back of a fully loaded dump truck ahead of us without ever hitting his brakes.

He shoved the dump truck another 20 feet and kept sliding until he slid onto the other side of the bridge and I thought he was going to break thru the bridge railing and plunge to a certain death 200 feet down to Green river.

JoJo and I just looked at each other and I said “What the hell?”

We got out and went up to the truck, the cop was there talking into his radio saying “start me a lifeline”.

This guy was crumpled up in the dash; airbags deployed but did not have his seatbelt on. His head was almost scalped and his almost new truck was mangled. We check on the dump truck driver who was ok but in shock like we were.

Joetta’s family started coming to the bridge from the funeral home to check on us. I just stood there doing the math and trying to visualize what kind of shape me and my wife would have been had this guy not have swerved around us, with that speed on that bridge. I just stood there and came to the conclusion that we could not have survived the impact.

The cop took our info; he was still shook up himself. An EMT told us this was not the first time he has done this. He was a diabetic and has seizures and has had several wrecks, he was not even supposed to be driving. He hit the dump truck so hard he busted the back wheel and slammed it into the curb after driving it forward 20 feet or so. What chance would we have had in our car? 

JoJo and I just last month set up our wills and trusts thinking what are the odds of us both dying at the same time. Well the odds are better than we thought. We had to sit on that bridge over an hour waiting for a helicopter to land on the bridge and fly the guy all the way to Nashville TN.

We kissed and said “I love you” and I thought about how badly this could have been for our families and our kids and our upcoming grandbaby that would never meet us. This is the second time this year that I had to think in terms of eternity, the third if you include the heart problem. For some reason the song “ Live Like You Are Dying” keeps coming to mind.

My advice: get your affairs in order, make sure your loved ones know they are and get all the skeletons out of your closet. You never know if you are going to attend a funeral or be the guest of honor.

P.S. When I think of how differently life would have been for those left behind if that truck had not swerved around us and the things we would have missed out on since, it puts things in perspective for me. Those times in our lives where chance almost intersects with fate makes us take stock of our lives. I can't imagine missing out on the special blessings I have had in the last year.  I wouldn't have been there to give walk my little girl down the aisle.  We wouldn't have been at that hospital to meet our grandson. Those are only two events that would have left my life unfullfilled to have missed. There will be many more in the life God has seen fit to extend. But those two stand out the most to me the most right now.