Reminders along the road

Whew, that was close!  I was sitting at a dead stop on a rain-drenched freeway at night.  Two lanes over a car parallel to me was also at a dead stop.  Unfortunately, the car behind the stopped car two lanes over didn't notice in time that the car ahead of him was stopped.  I heard the scraping of the locked tires along the wet surface as the car behind slid into the car parallel to me, not at a fast rate of speed, but fast enough to make a crashing noise and see the front car slide down the highway about 3 feet.

Fortunately, the accident didn't occur in my lane and include me.  Since that time - only two weeks ago - there have been 3 more wrecks in the same stretch of road.  The last one was severe.  Such scenes make me think, of course.  When will my turn come?  When will my time be up?  Life can be going along so normally when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the end happens or something devastating happens.

Well, I've been down the road before with a good number of people who are no longer walking the Earth.  One day they are alive, the next day they join the billions of people who have come and gone from the face of this Earth.

I'll never forget driving through a small town about 9 years ago and thinking of a friend who lived there.  She had had cancer for about a year.  I drove through the town, but felt a nudge to turn around and call her house from a pay phone.  (This was before cell phones were so available and coverage wasn't everywhere).  So I turned around and talked to her about 4 or 5 minutes.  Then I continued the trip home.  The next day I learned that she had passed away.

I'll never forget seeing another friend of mine in the hospital.  She had come to my town from another town pretty far away to have surgery.  Something told me I needed to go see her, which I did on two occasions during her stay in my town.  Two weeks later, I received a text that she had died.

There are a number of other instances.  But, I am constantly reminded that every day when I wake up and breathe air, I should be grateful to call my friends by name, to enjoy the sun, to enjoy the rain, to kiss my daughter, to smile every time my granddaughter looks at me, to celebrate someone's special occasion, to enjoy feelings for the ones I love, or to make a call to someone who needs encouragement.

Someday, the call will be to my next of kin rather than a call to me.