It's Still My Turn On Earth

Most of us don’t think about how precious life is until we have an incident similar to the one I experienced last Saturday. For those of us who drive we usually do it without thinking about all the things that can go wrong, but things can happen even if you are cautious and do everything right.

Driving carefully is what I do. I try to stay within the speed limit only exceeding it by 3 or 4 miles, and I don’t run red lights or stop signs. I signal when changing lanes and I’m courteous to others. When I’m in a parking lot I wait for the other cars to be out of the way before I pull onto the highway. I never imagined that others don’t do this. They actually pull out and try running you down.

Saturday afternoon I signaled and pulled into the left lane. As soon as the traffic coming towards me from the right passed, I turned left to drive into a parking lot. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I saw the car from the parking lot approaching me on the left side. I turned to watch in horror as it headed straight for me. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. My only thought was, “I’m dead.”

An arms length away it stopped. My instincts kept me going forward because in my mind I could remember the red-light at the corner changed just as I started to make my turn. I didn’t want to get smashed from the other side.

I don’t know what color of car almost hit me, and I don’t know who was driving it. I only know that someone saved me. I realized that my turn on earth is not over. I’m still here to carry on.

That night in bed I didn’t sleep much. I had many nightmares seeing the car barreling down on me. I cried many tears of gratitude because I wasn’t hurt and I’m here and able to care for my mother and husband. I can continue to help my family and friends, and I can make sure my book gets published.

I’m not sure I’ll change much. I do hope I’ll be more careful about wasting time and procrastinating. I’ll continue to go to church, and try to serve others. I’ll try to make good use of my time while I’m here on earth.