So, It’s 6:55 am. I’m getting ready to drop the kids at school and head down to the temple for the morning and Eric calls and calmly says, “I’ve had a bit of an accident, you’ll need to come get me.” At this point in time, I’m in the middle of 4 different things, and Eric has had a few fender benders, so I calmly find out his location (the split between 495 and 95) then reply, “Okay, it will be about 40 minutes. ” I’m seriously thinking that it’s no big deal at this point. I mean, it wasn’t the police who called or anything. As I continue on my well-ordered way out the door, my brain catches up and it occurs to me that MY HUSBAND HAS BEEN IN A CAR ACCIDENT. So I call back and, a little less calmly ask, “Are you okay?” He replies, just as calm as a summer’s morn, “Oh, absolutely.” My brain clicks over another gear or two and I comment, trying to sound casual, “But the truck is undriveable.” His cool demeanor finally cracks the teeniest bit and he pauses and says, “Uh, well, actually, the truck is upside down.” Not calmly at all I exclaim, “UPSIDE DOWN!?” He replies cheerfully, as if discussing the weather, “Yeah, but the EMT’s checked me out and I’m free to go.” I immediately realize that I will have to freak out for both of us since Eric is incapable of getting ruffled but I know it would be wasted on him so this time I exclaim only to myself: “THE TRUCK IS UPSIDE DOWN BY THE SIDE OF 95 IN RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC AND AN AMBULANCE HAD TO COME. AGHHHH!” After that brief, silent-but-very-effective mental breakdown, I shift into my cool, efficient crisis mode, am able to calmly explain to the kids what is going on, assure them that their dad was okay (because they had heard my less than calm exclamation about the direction of the car), and get them off to school. I get some gas (because, I coolly and efficiently realize, if I run out of gas, Eric will be unable to come get me) and commence to head south on 95, thinking about absolutely nothing. In crisis mode, my brain tends to hyperfocus on the task at hand. However, sitting in the traffic jam that his accident had caused, watching the helicopters circling overhead and talking to Eric on the phone as he described fishtailing, skidding sideways across several lanes of rush hour traffic and then turning over, my calmness fled and I have pretty much been a quivery, weepy mess ever since as the “what could have happened” scenarios refuse to leave my brain.

I know it must have been incredibly dramatic to see a 4-ton, 18-foot long truck go crazy like that because Eric said that a nurse who immediately pulled over to help proclaimed his survival a miracle. The other miracle is that only one other car was hit, but the driver was uninjured. Okay, I’m crying again just writing about it. I know it was a miracle. There are many blessings to make note of, such as the fact that he was wearing his seatbelt, that the impact was not hard enough to set off the airbag, that the truck probably won’t be totaled, that we carry stinkin’ good insurance on that behemoth because it is so big and expensive so we only have a 100 dollar deductable, that he was not going very fast, and again and again, that no one was injured. Thank goodness he and the other driver (and the 40 other people who could have been in his path) are all okay. I’m overwhelmed thinking about it. This on top of the other challenges that have knocked into our family in the last week has me feeling pretty fragile and drained. I know that everything will be okay, but that doesn’t make these moments of extreme emotion any easier.

He is indeed perfectly fine, other than that he’ll likely be very sore tomorrow. In true Eric form, he had me drop him off at the train station in Laurel so he could go into work as if nothing had happened. I so admire his resiliance. At that point in time, I felt like going home and going to bed and nothing had even happened to me! I did end up going to the temple, and I’m glad I did. Now that I’ve written about it, and counted my blessings, I will make myself a lovely salad instead of eating every single last donut left over from Seminary, even though every cell in my body is whispering in unison that I deserve comfort food right now. I will ignore them, but then I’m going to bed till the kids get home.