Open Writing

I didn't even know there was ice on the road until it was too late. I knew I was in serious trouble just as my car travelled under an overpass.

It was a regular route for me. I was living in a small town and had to drive to the city to teach a night class at a College. A full-blown snow storm was in progress as I headed home. I was driving quite cautiously peering into the black nothingness, through the furious swishing of windshield wipers.

I was on a well-travelled highway, in good condition and had my choice of two driving lanes with full shoulders on either side. I felt I should be okay. Suddenly as I came out on the other side of that overpass the car hit black ice and cold fear hit me, colder than the outdoors, knotting my insides.

I knew I had a death grip on the wheel as I wrestled to keep the car from heading for the ditch. The car lurched from side to side, sliding and weaving. Why couldn't I just get it straight?

Fear explored my brain in a race faster than the car itself! This was always a busy highway, day or night there was never a let up. To shoot over to the other lanes would be an invitation to death!

Desperately I struggled to keep the car righted but it slid sickeningly toward the ditch and the traffic lanes on the other side. I called out loud to the only help I could, "God, please help me!"

As the car slid straight toward the ditch I released my grip on the wheel and turned the problem over to HIM. There was nothing I could do. I had lost the battle and knew it. I could sense movement and then nothing.

There was no sound and no sensation. I did not feel the car move nor hit anything. I felt as though I was in sound studio, with any possible sound being sucked away. It was so completely quiet, sort of like Maxwell Smart's Cone of Silence!

I sat in complete darkness and wondered where I was. I stepped out of the car, puzzled as to what may have taken place.

The car was entirely covered in a blanket of white snow and now it was sideways blocking both lanes of oncoming traffic. I looked over the roof of the little vehicle, a Toyota Corolla, and saw cars in both lanes heading straight for me.

It was dark and my car sat there dead, no headlights to warn the unsuspecting travellers. I stood in the darkness, waving frantically in an effort to warn the drivers who were rushing straight at me.

Unbelievably all oncoming traffic saw me in time and moved over to the shoulders to get by. I pushed my car over to the side of the road and tentatively tried the starter. The motor caught.

I travelled cautiously along listening to the motor. Everything sounded as it should. Of course now I was travelling in the wrong direction on the other side of the road. I made it to the first crossroad, got turned back around in the direction I wanted to travel in and once again headed for home.

Later, the car was checked. There was not even grass caught on the undercarriage from travelling through the ditch. There were no signs that this car had been in and out of a ditch!

Blind luck, or a Heavenly Father keeping busy his traffic angels?
Personally I think heavenly intervention kept me alive that night and each time I travel under that overpass I thank God for hearing me that night.

Ellie Braun-Haley
shaley@telusplanet.net

Ellie is the author of a number of books and often travels to different cities to present talks and workshops. This puts her on the road in all kinds of weather. She says she still has trouble handling ice.
Look for A Little Door A Little Light, Casey Caterpillar and Other Movement Rhymes and Muttering Moths Movement Rhymes and More. And the latest book written with her husband, War On The Homefront (a look at spousal abuse on the North American continent by Berhhahn Publishers, New York)