A Reminder to be Grateful...Every Day

 Before I begin this particular tale - one that started off with my heart in my throat - you should know that The Husband works part-time for a local bank.  And in the course of his duties, he drives the bank's van; which is wrapped with the bank's name and logo and logo colors prominently displayed.  The van is a bright and eye-catchingly blue.

Today is one of the days that he was working this week.  He usually gets there around 8 am and is on the road around 9 am.

I determined that I needed to go the the library today since we are hosting the kids tomorrow in lieu of Thanksgiving; as they are spending that day with her parents.

Right before I left the house, I received two separate calls from The Husband that I, assumed, were pocket dials as he never responded when I said hello.  As I headed out of the house I noticed the time was right about 9 am and I wondered briefly if I would spot The Husband out in the wild.  It's always funny to me, when I see him out and about in the bank van, because he is so very visible in that bright blue van and I am invisible in my gray RAV4.  So basically, I can see him but he has no idea I'm two cars behind him.

As I neared the on-ramp to the highway, I noticed a plethora of fire engines and cop cars ahead.  Oh great, an accident.  I made the snap decision to get into the next lane to go a little further up to make a u-turn since the on-ramp on this side of the road was blocked.

As I made the u-turn and came back toward the intersection, I glanced over and saw the bank van on the side of the road.  From where I was, I couldn't safely get over to the left lanes to turn into the service station to see what was going on.  I had to turn onto the on-ramp.  Once I was safely on the highway, I immediately called him to see what was going on.  As you might imagine, my heart was racing and my imagination was in overdrive.  An accident?  The van hadn't looked damaged from my vantage point.  A medical emergency?   

He picked up immediately, to my great relief.  There had been an accident and, by some miracle, both he and the woman who pulled out in front of him were safe.  I immediately navigated to the next off-ramp to turn around.

When I got to the aforementioned service station, I could clearly see that the van was severely damaged and the other car (which I hadn't been able to see for all the traffic earlier).  It was a pretty nasty accident and both The Husband and the woman were very rattled.  The woman apologized to me, when she heard me say to The Husband that it was terrifying to be driving by and see my husband on the side of the road surrounded by emergency vehicles.  She clearly knew she had caused this accident, but I was not in the frame of mind to place blame.  I was just extremely grateful that everyone was okay.

And after The Husband later described to me exactly what had happened - how these two vehicles during rush hour traffic were the only two vehicles affected was miraculous.  Somehow, after his van hit her SUV, her vehicle was pushed across three lanes of traffic and landed in the median - yet, didn't hit another vehicle.  How when he swerved to avoid t-boning her car (which may well have ended up with her severely injured or worse), he didn't hit any other cars.  The only explanation was a miracle.

We were recently discussing all the bad things going on right now and The Husband was wondering what the lesson in all this bad luck must be.  And just the evening, I revisited the topic and told him that the lesson was to be grateful - because no matter how shitty things might be right now for us, there is still a lot to be grateful for - and that is the Thanksgiving lesson we are going with today.