“Here we go. It is happening,” Mike said to me as the car skidded off the interstate and down the 100 plus foot embankment.
The roads were slick and we had spent the whole drive tense with fear that the car would skid.
Tumbling down the hill reminded me of Alice falling down the rabbit hole. There was no pain and, even though I knew we might die, I most vividly remember watching random Tupperware, shoes, water bottles, and candy wrappers spin around us with the rotation of the car.
It must have been noisy. The sounds of breaking glass and crunching metal must have echoed through the sage brush and disturbed the watching horses.
I only remember silence and the sound of my own voice chanting “we are okay.”
The car slowed and stopped. I asked Mike if he was in fact “okay.” He was. I looked around wondering how to get out of the car. Then it started again.
We rolled a couple or a couple hundred more times.
We stopped again. This time it felt solid and final. Again, I asked Mike if he was okay. He did not respond immediately. I shouted and startled him into responding. We inspected ourselves and confirmed that we were miraculously intact.
I opened my door, without even appreciating that it was a miracle that it opened, and looked around. The car had settled onto the driver’s side against a barbed wire fence. We were at the bottom of a steep embankment. We could not see the cars passing on the interstate above. They could not see us. Nobody stopped, nobody called 911.
Mike found a phone and made the call. I scrambled to the top of the hill grasping sage brush when I lost my footing. Suddenly, inexplicably, I was in a huge hurry. Mike fell behind me talking to 911. He mentioned that he was not sure where we were. Now I had my purpose. Once back on the interstate, I sprinted toward the nearest exit sign. In the thick blizzard, I had a long way to run before I could make out the exit number. I got it—121.
I turned to head back. A couple of cars stopped to offer assistance to the girl in the hot pink puffy vest frantically running alone along the interstate. I waved them each away. I got back to Mike and breathless told him the exit number. He smiled and hugged me. He was no longer on the phone; he had regained his bearings long before and the police were on their way.
As Mike headed back down the hill to get our coats, I doubled over sobbing. Down the hill, Mike was crying as well.
Once we were safe at home again, we held each other and wondered how we could ever want to go anywhere or do anything besides just sit safely together.
This Thanksgiving I am thankful for the same things I am thankful for each year--my family, our health and Mike--but this year there is something more earnest and passionate in my gratitude. I hope it never takes rolling my car to make me appreciate my blessings again.
