Accident

"Accident - an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance"
- Merriam Webster

When I totaled the car last week and suffered spasms of guilt, my husband and his father used the same phrase to reassure me: "it was an accident."  I also heard this: "you're only human." To be honest, neither phrase improved my shaky nerves or stopped my flashbacks: the horrified too-late recognition of the red light, thunderous slam on the brake pedal and squealing of brake pads, slow motion realization of pending impact followed by crunch of metal, whoosh of airbag, and sinking scent of things burning, broken, abused.

What did resonate with me, a friend's comment about how "precious little" it takes for a car to turn into something dangerous and deadly.  For me, was it fatigue, pending illness, preoccupation with the Harvard Anniversary report, a muzzy experimentation with a word or phrase I wanted to use in writing? I don't know. But I do know that it was careless, a "precious little" absence of awareness that led to the injury-free, yet appalling, mangling of metal frames and melting tires.

In my thirty-one years of driving I have never been at the wheel during an accident. I've been a passenger four or five times, but my driving has been without incident. I would give anything to have that spotless record again, and can but look forward to my penance in traffic court and traffic school for hopes of re-starting with a cleaner slate.

My conscience weighs heavier because I have a teen driver on the road and will soon have another practicing with his permit. I tell the kids to be eternally vigilant, to watch out for folks on the phone or drinking coffee, applying makeup or reaching for something in another seat. I was doing none of those things, yet I became the person to watch out for. (Also a person who ended that sentence with a preposition. How low can I fall?)

I'm beyond grateful that no one was hurt, that it was me and not my parents (who drove from California to Montana last week), or my in-laws (who drove from Ohio to Colorado and back again), or my kids. The accident was a wake-up call and a lesson that will hopefully serve all of us well, especially now that the fourteen-year-old minivan - with it's blind spots, old tech, and high center of gravity - is gone, and the new, smaller car has side window alerts and a backup camera. Drive safe.