“I testify of angels, both the heavenly and the mortal kind. In doing so I am testifying that God never leaves us alone, never leaves us unaided in the challenges that we face. ‘[N]or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man [or woman or child] upon the face thereof to be saved.’”
Jeffrey R. Holland
This story might just start a few weeks ago when, during an honest self-evaluation, I concluded that I needed to pray for humility. I don’t think for one minute that this a good thing to pray for. I had weighed my options here. I don’t want humbling experiences. But I am prideful and I want to be a better person. So, knowing full well that it was an idiotic thing to do, I asked Heavenly Father to help me be humble. More specifically I told him, “I don’t want to go through trials, but I’m asking you to do whatever it takes to help me become the person I could be.” Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. I would have said no such thing if I had known it would involve other people’s children.
Yesterday was one of those super busy days where everything overlapped. I was going to have to pick up Adelaide from preschool early so I could get Rhianna to school on time before running to Addie’s speech therapy appointment. After that, I had to get the younger kids off the school bus, and run into town to pick up Chloe. If she took the bus, she’d be late for her very last activity days. She was so excited about it. I knew that my friend, Brenda, would be willing to take Quentin to his scouts which started a little before that and Katherine would bring Chloe home. Amidst all of that, my three little girls had choir class. After, there would still be mutual for the teenagers.
In a day like that, I needed friends. Everyone always sacrifices so much for my family. The one space I had to pay-it-forward was in the morning. Since preschool was at the completely opposite side of town, I could easily pick up the other kids on my way. I had texted the other moms and three responded. I was a little worried that the others were not answering because they thought they were out of the way for me, but, in hindsight, it may have been because I'm a terrible driver. I sent one more text to be certain. This might seem like an act of benevolence. It isn’t. It has to do with the obsessive desire to give more than I take. It’s a side effect of the aforementioned pride. It’s a constant rat race to keep the score close to even because I am surrounded by such incredible, Christ-like people.
In a day like that, I needed friends. Everyone always sacrifices so much for my family. The one space I had to pay-it-forward was in the morning. Since preschool was at the completely opposite side of town, I could easily pick up the other kids on my way. I had texted the other moms and three responded. I was a little worried that the others were not answering because they thought they were out of the way for me, but, in hindsight, it may have been because I'm a terrible driver. I sent one more text to be certain. This might seem like an act of benevolence. It isn’t. It has to do with the obsessive desire to give more than I take. It’s a side effect of the aforementioned pride. It’s a constant rat race to keep the score close to even because I am surrounded by such incredible, Christ-like people.
In the end, I was supposed it pick up four kiddos and haul three of my own. Oh, how I loved my twelve-passenger van! The temperature was going to get all the way up to 38 degrees yesterday and I was excited about it. I am not someone who is super sad when the winter is too warm. At nine in the morning, we were already hovering about freezing and it was raining outside. The roads were slick. I slid several times, but always quickly regained control. I picked up the first three kids and headed toward the last one. I knew I’d be going off the paved road, briefly. Where the road ended and the dirt road tilted to the right, there is a small turnaround with two trees in the middle. I was going slower than usual because of the ice, but still braked as I approached so I could stop and make the right turn. Nothing happened. The car seemed completely unaware that it had brakes. We slid forward at exactly the same velocity as before. We weren’t careening out of control, but it was a horrible feeling to be completely unable to stop or slow the car.
I suppose the world slows down when everything is happening too fast. I remember all kinds of thoughts in the few seconds leading up to the crash. I was worried about trying to steer left or right. What would happen? And believe me, I know this sounds insane, but in the moment, it seemed very logical. I thought, “Just run it into the trees. That will stop you.” As I have run those few moments through my mind again and again, I have pondered on how silly that thought seems. But I don’t think a turn would have avoided the trees entirely. And if I had tried to turn, things would have played out differently, though I don’t know how.
We hit the trees.
The next thing I knew, I was flipped around backward climbing into the back of my van toward the screaming children. Addie was closest. She was trapped under a car seat on the floor. I didn’t process that right away. I counted. They were all there. They were all moving. They were all responding. I got Addie out. And then I asked the kids to calm down. I told them I needed to call for help. I explained that I couldn’t do that if they were screaming. To my utter amazement, every single one of them went quiet. I tried the mom whose house we were headed toward first. She was closest. She didn’t answer, so I called another Mom, my friend, Katherine. She told me she would be there soon.
The kids were holding their noses and the air looked smoky. I looked toward the front of the van to see if something was on fire. I quickly realized it was the airbags. They were both out. I didn’t remember them going off. I needed to get the kids out of the car. I tried the sliding door first. It wouldn’t open. I climbed to the back to see if I could open the rear doors from within. I’d never done that before and if it’s possible, I didn’t know how. So I climbed back up front. Both doors were blocked by the tree, but the passenger looked less so. With the help of a very independent little boy, I managed to get the door pushed open enough to get everyone out. I handed each of the little ones out the door, onto the ground before pushing my own way out.
There we all stood, me and five preschoolers (the baby was still inside in his car seat). I realized I had to call the other moms. I tried. Ridiculously, I could not remember how to make my phone make a call. I put it in my pocket and looked down at the little faces standing there in the rain. Up until now I kind of had a checklist of things I needed to do. I couldn’t think of what was next. I said the words out loud. “We need to…” I didn’t know. I said it again, “We need to…” and this time the words fell from my mouth before I heard them in my head, “say a prayer.” Five little kids gathered in a tight circle. They reacted immediately without a second prompting. They each folded their arms and bowed their heads. They listened silently as I poured out my heart in thanks for the angels that had protected them, while freezing raindrops fell from the sky.
A moment later help arrived. My wonderful friend, who should have rightly been very concerned about her son and angry with me, immediately put her arms around me. I remembered how to use my phone. I spoke with the other moms, but the kids all insisted they didn’t want to go home. They wanted to go to preschool.
Someone asked about my arm. It was bruised, but I hadn’t really noticed, so it couldn’t be that big of a deal. Neighbors showed up to help. There wasn’t really anything to be done. The poor van was wedged almost perfectly between two trees. It would take a professional tow truck to move it. That’s not to say they weren’t any help. One of them laughed and said, “I hit that tree once.” He’ll never know how much better that made me feel.
We all hopped into my friend’s car and took those amazing kids to preschool. Once there, Kelli, the teacher that day, wanted to look at my arm. She’s a paramedic. I almost told her not to worry about it, but decided it might be good for everyone if we all walked into the house together. I’m so glad we did because besides wrapping the injury, she told me to take the ring I was wearing off before my fingers got any more swollen. Otherwise, it would have had to have been cut off later. I wouldn’t have thought of that, but would have been heartbroken to lose that ring, a keepsake from my grandmother. She also took a look at the accident pictures Katherine had taken and declared that, based on the accidents she’s seen, I could not have hit that tree in a better way to minimize the impact to the people in the van. Well, maybe running directly into the tree wasn’t that crazy after all.
The rest of the day belongs to my friends. They watched my kids, took me to the hospital, taxied my kids around, and even bought Nate his favorite soda so he’d feel better when I shared the news of our poor car. (He was, of course, the picture perfect husband, supportive, kind, comforting.) Through it all, a familiar scripture kept popping into my head.
“And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
“Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” (John 9:1–3.)
If nothing bad ever happened, how would we ever get to witness a miracle? I saw a lot of them yesterday. But did the experience help me in my hopeless quest for humility? I hope so, because I don’t want another like it.
