My wife’s great uncle, George, recently passed away. He was 94 years old. He and his 96 year old wife, Aunt Grace, would have been married 64 years next month. As I sat at his memorial service, I thought of my own mortality.

Have you ever had a close call with death? I guess we all have at one time or another. I had two such experiences, both while riding a motorcycle. Please, no floods of E-mail warning me about “murdercycles”. I haven’t straddled one since January 24, 1984, the day of my last accident. Of course, neither was my fault, but I decided that ending up “dead right” if it involves a plot at Memorial Gardens just wasn’t worth it.

Let me tell you about a recent event that turned out to be a major annoyance and inconvenience, but could have turned out much differently. When Pat and I went up to northern Georgia for our daughter’s wedding, we decided to take an extra day after the wonderful wedding and just drive up through the Smokies, one of our most favoritest places in the whole wide world.

It was a cloudy, sometimes rainy day. However, the mountains have a mystique all their own on those kinds of days. We were driving along the Nantahila River near Cherokee, NC (site of the kayak competition during the recent Atlanta Olympic Games). The road was very twisty and narrow. The light rain was oiling the road. As we approached one particularly tight curve, riding on the outside of the slim road, I saw a U-Haul truck coming around the curve. I guess just because one is able to rent a truck, doesn’t make him/her a truck driver!

My high school driver’s education teacher taught me to watch the front tire on a vehicle to get the fastest and easiest read on where the vehicle is going. Well, these tires were drifting across the double yellow line! He kept coming. I kept squeezing and scrunching to the right. I was literally on the edge of a very steep and unprotected drop.

Suddenly, his extended rear view mirror struck Tonka 02. It only hit my rear view mirror. Therein lies the real miracle in this whole thing. The collision of the mirrors snapped my mirror into my side window, shattering it into thousands of pieces. Fortunately, I had after market tinted film on my windows. That film allowed the shattered window to hang in there and not shower us with slivers of glass.

Pat’s first reaction was to urge me to turn around, follow the man, and hold him responsible for what he did. I explained that ten more vehicles had already passed us and that there wasn’t a passing lane for the past twenty miles. Also, there was no way to “prove” which vehicle was on the wrong side of the double yellow.

I was just very glad that only a mirror and window were involved. Three or four inches further over the line, and I’m quite sure that Pat and I would have been lying on the wet pavement with toe tags hanging off our dainty little feet!

Was I ready to go to Heaven? Ready, yes. Did I want to go on the next plane? Absolutely not. Still lots of good things to look after here if the Lord allows.

I did realize afresh that, after all, things are things and can be fixed. I also learned that allowing anger to control my life, inflate my blood pressure, perhaps cause me to engage in very stoooooopid reactions is not the way I want to lead my life. Was it inconvenient to drive another 800 miles before we could get home and get it fixed? For sure! Even though Pat put lots of clear packing tape across the window, the noise, at highway speeds, was deafening. We couldn’t listen to music or talk.

Windows shatter in all our lives. What we do about it determines, to a great extent, how we end up viewing the experience and what we learn from it.

I want to hear the reflections, conclusions, impressions you come to as a result of reading this piece. I’ll get back with you. Just use the “Leave a Reply” box below!

Thanks and God bless!

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