Life Can Turn on a Dime

Life can turn on a dime.  After sixty-one years, I have witnessed the reality of this cliche as I am sure many of you have, too.  A fall on the ice rendered me unable to walk or work for the next few months. An open door led to the loss of a beloved family pet.  One phone call and a loved one was lost forever. Life was going along just fine, and then....

I am terrified of car accidents.  I don't think I'm as good a driver as I once was.  Ask my friend Dee who screamed and stopped me from plowing into a car waiting to make a left turn.  I also don't think drivers are as good as they credit themselves with being.  Multi-tasking behind the wheel has made the roads increasingly unsafe.  Simple mistakes can be disasters.  Recently, I swerved out of the path of a car driving on the wrong side of the road in the early evening. Scary as hell. It was a mistake that luckily did not result in tragedy.  Others have not been so lucky.

I couldn't even read the latest Lisa Scottoline book that opened with a hit-and-run car accident that left a woman dead and a man and son consumed with guilt.  The opening of that book filled me with such anxiety that I had to put it aside.  It felt too real, too horrible, and all too likely to happen to anyone who operates a car.That's why a recent car accident that has touched my life in an indirect way has filled my thoughts lately.

If you're local, you know that an Episcopal bishop hit a bicycle rider and killed him. The accident happened in the late afternoon.  Complete details have not been released, charges have not been filed, but the media of public opinion has gone wild.  The grief of the bicycling community has been agonizingly expressed, and much of the speculation paints the woman as a monster.  She did what could not be forgotten or forgiven, she left the scene of the crime.

Many at my church know this woman and care deeply about her.  In fact, Sunday's sermon dealt with this catastrophe and our feelings about it. We prayed for the deceased and his family, but we also prayed earnestly for our church's friend.  She did not mean to hurt anybody.  But she did, and her first response was to run.

I had trouble with that.  How could she leave?  How could she not stay and pray over him? Call 911? Do something. Anything.  And then one of the parishioners made it very clear to me.  She said, in her quiet and gentle voice, that we all like to think we would do the right thing.  But in the shock of the moment, can we really be sure what we'd do?

I once thought I was sure.  But if I am truthful, I realize that I am not so confident I'd do the right thing.  Over a year ago, my sister's oven caught on fire.  I'd been trained in emergencies.  I should know what to do in case of fire.  What did I do?  I got myself out of the house.  Myself.  Granted, if one of the kids had not been outside, maybe I'd have sprung into action.  But we left the guinea pigs and birds in the house.  Animal activists could judge us brutally for doing that.  However, in the panic of the moment, we just weren't thinking straight.  And I didn't respond the "right" way.

Life can turn on a dime.  Like a roller coaster, we can be riding high and in the blink of an eye, drop to the deepest depths.  My heart goes out to the people whose lives recently took that painful drop. May the bicycle rider be in peace.  May his family and friends weather this tragedy and heal. And may God also hold the Episcopal priest in His embrace.  None of us are perfect.  None of us are exempt from the possibility of our own lives turning on that proverbial dime.