Sterling and I were on our way back to the church after working out at the gym last week when we came upon a car that had gone off the road and into the median ditch on Hwy 285, so we pulled over to check on the driver. The elderly woman behind the wheel seemed to be OK, and insisted that she didn't want us to call 911. "I just want to go home", she said, and asked us if we thought she should just drive herself back to her house. "No, I don't think that's a good idea" I replied. She seemed disoriented (understandably) and she couldn't explain how she'd ended up where she was. Besides, I wasn't sure what shape her car was in because she'd driven completely over a dirt mound and a concrete water culvert on the other side. We drove her back home and found that she lives on 40 acres of land in a home that her husband built himself - a beautiful log house built along a stream. When we felt reassured that she was not injured, we exchanged contact information and left.
Later on back at the church, Sterling and I explained what had happened to Mike - and from his background as a firefighter he was concerned that our new friend had actually had a stroke. We decided to drive back to the house to double check on her, and we found her husband in the garage cutting kindling. We were looking over the minor damage to the front of the car when her husband noticed for the first time a huge dent in the passenger side roof where something had literally punched a hole almost all the way through the metal. How in the world had that happened? We hadn't actually seen the accident happen, but we couldn't imagine any scenario that could explain the dent and hole in the roof. We checked the wife for signs of a stroke, but she seemed fine. Sterling and I immediately hit it off with this couple, and we decided to find out how we could help them since they seemed to be all on their own out there in the country. In the course of our conversation I found out that their daughter would be coming up from Littleton the next day (Saturday), so we made plans to be there to talk with her about the accident and the repairs for the car.
Heath and I went back the next day under the pretext of looking the car over more thoroughly. However, my real desire was to get the daughter on her own to tell her what had happened, and that we suspected that her Mom had actually blacked-out at the wheel. Heath "jumped on the hand-grenade" for me and kept the mother occupied in the garage while I spoke to her daughter outside. A funny side note: Heath ran out of things to say to keep the Mom preoccupied, as she kept trying to listen in to our conversation outside the garage, so he just started talking nonsense. The old woman finally turned to look at him and said, "I don't understand a word you're saying!" And Heath replied, "Me neither... I guess I had a brain fart." That's what friends are for! Anyway, in talking to their daughter I learned that she and her siblings had been trying to convince her folks (especially her Mom) to stop driving for years, but she stubbornly refuses. They also want to them to move closer to town, but after building the home and estate with their own hands, this is understandably a very difficult idea for them to swallow.
The old man asked us to show them where the accident happened, so he and his wife and their daughter and son-in-law hopped in their truck and followed Heath and I back to the scene. Only then did we discover what had really happened: She had apparently gone off the road at high speed about 100 yards further up the road, knocked a 1/4 inch thick road sign right off its base, veered into the oncoming traffic, veered back onto the median, over another water culvert and finally stopped - which is where we found her. She was lucky to be alive, let alone not have killed someone else. The road sign she'd hit had flipped up, punctured the roof and then bounced off the back of the vehicle - it's a miracle it didn't come through the windshield.
We all went to the Angry Llama for lunch, and as we sat there the old man said, "We sure are lucky to have met you guys! I can't tell you how much I appreciate all you've done for us." I replied that people really need to look out for each other in life. "Trust me", he said. "That stopped years ago". "Well", I said, "I guess we're old fashioned, because that's what we do." On impulse I turned to his wife and said, "I'm going to put on my Pastor's hat for a moment and suggest that you really need to consider the idea of not driving anymore. You could have seriously hurt yourself or killed someone else." She sat and listened, but didn't say much. Her husband told me later how grateful he was that I'd brought up the touchy subject, as it made it easy for he and his daughter to talk to her later at home. As expected, however, she's not giving up her independence without a fight.
Since that time I've been down to their house several times to check up on them, and they both just keep saying how they've been so blessed to get to know us. Yesterday Heath and I took them with their car to a body shop to get an estimate on the repairs, and I drove the wife in her car while Heath followed behind in my truck. She and I had a very significant conversation on the way, and she admitted to me that she's not a happy person. "Why aren't you happy?" I asked, and she proceeded to tell me how she'd lost a son many years ago, and about her unhappy marriage. As we talked I found out they're both Jehovah's Witnesses, although their faith hasn't apparently helped her to find joy in life.
I know the Lord well enough to discern that this "chance" encounter along the side of the road is part of a bigger plan ... and my prayer is that God will bring this couple a new freedom from fear and bitterness in their waning years of life. Nothing is impossible for Him.
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