navigating life's highways

On Sunday, we went up into New York state to celebrate my niece's 7th birthday. My parents
were sick so Tim and I offered to pick up my niece's gifts and bring them to the party. It added
45 minutes to our trip but if we didn't, my mom intended to drive to our house and back to drop
them off. I normally take back roads to my parents' house but to save time(not really) and try to
get Olivia from point A to B to C without carsickness and medication that makes her grouchy, I
took the highways. NOT a good call. It was raining and there was some crazy phenomenon going
on on route 80. I always drive slower in the rain especially after hydroplaning in Vermont one time driving my husband's old monster-tired bronco. TRES scary. So I am driving down route 80 and we see an empty SUV that was resting along the curb backwards. Then we see cops at 2 sites. One of which I was not sure of the reason but the other was another accident. Then we see yet another car on the side of the road. I started to tell Tim and Olivia of the time 20 plus years ago when I saw a kid in a small car come onto a highway and quickly cut across 3 lanes of traffic right in front of me only to hit an oil spot or something and he spun around and wound up facing the wrong way in the fast lane of another crazy highway near the one I was on. I'll never forget the look on his face. Just as I finish this story, the SUV 2 spots ahead of me begins to fishtail. He loses control and starts spinning all over the highway. At one point, he almost flipped over and he just missed hitting the curb 2 lanes from where he started. He got back going straight and by this time, I knew there was something wrong with this road. I backed
off the gas even more and started white knuckling it. As I passed the truck that did this, I saw that the man driving was stunned and the woman in the passenger seat was holding her head in her hands obviously quite upset. Just a few seconds later, a large car behind me spun out and started going across lanes of traffic circling as he went and crashed into the curb or guardrail on the shoulder of the road. OK, now this is insane. If it had not been my niece's b-day, Olivia wanted us to take her to a nascar race in Delaware and here we were feeling like we were driving in one ourselves with cars spinning out left and right. I pulled into the slow lane and backed it down even further. I prayed to make it to the exit and wondered if this could be oil rising up with this rain or what. Years ago I was told by a southern California guy that when it rains, their
roads turn to oil slicks because of the build up that results from so little rain and he said accidents are very common. That was the only way I could explain what we saw this day. It was scary. We got to my mom's safely and Tim took over driving to my sister's with me watching the
speedometer and yelling if he went too fast. I wondered if we would hear about this on the news and sure enough, it made the paper yesterday. There was a total of 43 accidents on that stretch of road but they blamed it on speeding drivers in the rain. Not true. I don't know why we made it through unscathed. I thought back a few years when I got new tires for the mommy van. I told the guy, "I don't want the cheepest tires you have for this vehicle. I want the ones you would put on it if it were your wife's car." Tim was with me and said "Wait a minute, you don't know how much he likes his wife." I said, "OK then give me the tires you would put on your own car." I think it's crazy to save money on tires. I told the guy that I wanted the best rain handling tires he had for my car. Maybe that was why this didn't happen to us on Sunday. I thought too of all the little things in life that change it's course so drastically, like timing. The two cars that had just spun out right near me somehow did it when there were not cars in the lanes that they spun across. We ourselves should not have even been on this road were it not for Tim saying we would do this favor. We tread a thin line all of our lives between life and death, good times or
catastrophe. I knew as I drove down that highway that we could easily be next and it might not end as well as the 2 I'd just witnessed. I also felt a little bit like I have felt about Tim's remission and his MM battle. I know several people who have relapsed and others, that I know from blogs or the acor list, who have died. For the last 16 months we have been just white knuckling it and trying to stay straight and in control while all around us others are spinning out and losing their sense of control. You don't know why things happen as they do but you are painfully aware of your vulnerability in this process. Life is so random. It changes in the blink of an eye. Everytime you get in your car, a zillion stars align that either get you to your destination in one piece or not. Every second is another chance for the path of your life to change
course dramatically. We are all faced with the same exact risks. I applaud those people who can
live their life without ruining it with the "what if " disease that I have had for years. Being a worry wart may have saved my ass a few times but it's also ruined my chance at real enjoyment at others. I know that I will be staying the heck off route 80 for awhile. Why push it? I sent a thankyou heavenbound when we made it to our destination and hoped that everyone else on route 80 that day at least stayed in one piece. Man, life is risky. I heard a quote one time that said something to the effect of, "you can't be so afraid of dying that you don't start living." I guess it's another one of life's "fine lines." I guess somewhere there is the perfect balance between care-free and careful. I haven't found it so I keep praying, being grateful and worrying,
not exactly in that order.