To Top it All Off - Almost - With A Totaled Car

          Well, I've been hesitant to post this one because I still feel responsible. But, this is one of those things that I hope will help a lot of people. First of all, I must mention the title - this is not the end of my day after day heartache, just one more thing that God threw my way. However, with this one, He showed me in every way that His hand is a part of everything we do.
          I left my therapist's office and left to go home to Alpine. I needed home. Okay, wait pause. My car has been beaten up a time or two so first I went to get an estimate on how much it would cost to repair my car. Holy Schnizia! This is actually an important variable, but we'll get to that later. Back to me going home. I hopped on the freeway to go out to Alpine. What I didn't know, was that the inside rim of one of my tires has had a hairline crack for a long time. Let me explain what that means in case you're anything like me and know little to nothing about cars and mechanics. Over time, the crack grows and grows until it just breaks. What I mean by the crack breaking, is literally a piece of the inside of my rim broke off. This causes essentially a blowout of a tire as it cannot function the way it's supposed to anymore. What does a blowout of a tire do? Good question. I don't really know, all that I know is what happened to me.

          I lost all control of my steering wheel. It locked itself all the way to the right. I remember tugging on the wheel, trying to make it NOT hit the cement barrier on the FREEWAY, but despite my efforts, that's exactly what happened. The weird thing about hitting the right side of my car, was that the first thing to happen, was that my left airbag went off. Confused, I pulled back, looking at the airbag. Hold that thought for just a second.
          Back to the car - oh no, it most definitely did not stop there. When it hit the barrier, my car then decided to over-correct itself entirely. The steering wheel reversed, and locked itself all the way left. Oh goody! See, now I am a small little sedan driving horizontally, perpendicular to the flow of traffic, on the freeway, during rush hour. Somehow, I managed to make it to the second to last far left lane before an Expedition hit me (Tender Mercy 1). Even crazier, of all the places that they could have hit, they hit the very back of my car, (2) hard enough that it flipped me around and over to the side of the freeway (3). It completely blew out my trunk. The entire driver's side of the car's doors wouldn't open, and my car was smoking.

          Okay, back to me again. Remember how I pulled back when the first airbag went off? (4) This is a vital piece of information because it prevented whiplash and further damage/shock when the other airbags went off. All of my airbags went off, but they only felt like a cushion because of my prior reactions. Like I said, my car was smoking, I could smell it, but I was just... sitting... in my car. Then, a couple people who had seen the accident and pulled over to help came up and were telling me I needed to get out of my car. My reaction time would've been a whole lot longer had it not been for (5) Bryson Carrier. He just so happened to be one of these people who was behind me - but had no idea it was me - and decided to pull over. He also happens to be someone that I know from high school - almost if not the only person I don't hold any animosity towards. He has always only been such a dear friend since the accident. Hearing him tell me what I needed to do, was a lot better than having some stranger, or officer yell at me.
          I tried to call my mom 4 times. My dad was in California so I knew that if I called him, it would likely do more harm than good - he would be too frustrated that he couldn't do anything. However, I decided to call my dad, although he was working, he answered (6). I was able -who knows how!- to calmly explain the situation (although I had no idea about my tires at this point, all I knew was that I suddenly lost control of my steering wheel). (7) Then my dad continued trying my mom until she answered. (8) I guess she was sanding a piece of furniture with an electric sander. He explained what had happened to her, but she didn't have her car because my sister took it. Yikes! Or not so much.... My mom went downstairs and asked my sister, Annika who has severe disabilities, her caregiver if she could use her car. Maryann (the caregiver) said absolutely. (9)
          Since I was heading home, I had quite a few things in my car that were pretty important to me. It's a good thing that my car didn't blow up! (10) And Bryson asked me what I needed out of my car. When my response was "everything," he didn't gripe or complain, he just started loading things from my car to his, because he offered to give me a ride home. (11&12) At this point, I didn't know that my mom was coming. When the officers asked us to write our testimonies; my fingers were freezing and Bryson offered to let me sit in his car as I wrote what had happened. (13) He helped me out with everything and kept me calm. (14) He even called his wife and told her that he was helping me and would be late coming home. What a sweetheart!

          My mom and I finally got in touch and decided to meet up at an exit right off of the freeway. Then we were able to transfer all of my stuff from Bryson's car to Maryann's. As we were doing this, the tow truck that has my car pulls off to the same place we had pulled off at. Bryson had previously got the towing information for me. (15) But, as we talked to the tower, he was able to tell us some of the things that didn't make sense in our heads. (16) He was able to do this because he 'just so happened' to work at a tire shop before. (17) So he knew what had happened when he pulled out the tire that had flown off of my car; he was able to explain it to us. Bryson left, we took some pictures, then we left.

 


       
 Now, onto going to my car at the towing-storage unit. My brother-in-law, Chad Bowcut is an amazing mechanic (among many other things). So he was able to come with me and trade-out the stereos - one that came with the car and one that we put in after market. (18)  While he did that, I was able to reclaim my stuff that had been launched across the freeway but later restored back in my car. (19) Then, while Chad analyzed the damage, he noticed my license plate - "mean people suck" - which I've kept since my first car. He took that off for me as well. (20)
          Holy crap! But wait, go back to the first thing I told you to hold in your mind. The one about how ridiculous my repair bill would be? First of all, I won't have to pay that ridiculous bill! (21) Well, it's taken a while, and a lot of talking with the insurance, but... now I have the amount that the insurance will pay me for my totaled car. (22) It is slightly more than I paid for my car 4 years ago. (23)
          So yeah, I may have set myself up for lots of pain, heartache, trials and tribulations when I told God, "Come what may, I can take it." But, despite the brutality of it all, He makes sure that His daughter knows she is in His hands. No matter what happens; I am in God's hands. For some of us, it is harder to feel it. But I can see it. I can see that He loves me a lot, and I know that He loves each and every one of you a lot. You are in God's hands, His love for each of us is unique, because each of us are unique.