What was supposed to be a fun and carefree girls weekend started out on a pretty scary note. L and I were headed up to Dallas for a 4 day weekend of sightseeing, TOFW/TOFG and to meet Grandma, Aunt Jen, and Abby for it all. We left early on the morning of 10/15/16 right after dropping the boys at school. We made it all the way to DFW with no incident and were 25 minutes from the airport when out of nowhere a car in the slow lane a few car lengths ahead of us (we were going 70 in the fast lane) literally turns left (not veered left, but turned left and was perpendicular to us cutting across all lanes of traffic headed for the guardrail) and heads straight for us. I could tell if we kept our course we were going to smash right into their driver side passenger door. I made the quick decision to try and move to the right as quickly as possible to avoid the accident but it was not the case. The back end of the driver driver side struck the front end of our driver side and sent us into a spin to the right across all lanes of traffic until we smashed in the on ramp guardrail. The speedometer stopped at 53mph so I'm assuming that's how fast we were going at the last impact.
It was the scariest thing I have even been through in my entire life and the first words out of my mouth were "are you OK Lillie?!" And she was thankfully. But I just kept asking it over and over. And then I started my prayers of thanks. We were completely fine. I was going to be sore I could tell and had a few cuts and scratches across my chest but other than that we were only shaken. And that was really only me. L started to immediately ask if we were still going to stay up here to have fun for the weekend...ah the sweet gift of youth - she wasn't dead and neither was her mom so what else was there to be fearful of?
A kind lady stopped and called the police for us. My phone had flown out of the holder and I couldn't find it for a bit. We never saw the other driver. He crashed on the opposite side of our side of traffic into the retaining wall that blocks from the other side of traffic and farther behind us. Apparently he kept trying to place blame on me saying that he had been driving right next to me and I had whacked him from the fast lane. Uh...no. Then he changed his story 2 more times and finally ended with saying that he had blacked out and had no idea what happened at all. The cops said: sir we can see the skid marks going from the slow lane all the way across to here leading to your vehicle. We have a feeling the lady's story matches up. He had children in his car and thankfully everyone there was ok as well.
I had a hard time sleeping for a couple of weeks between torn muscles in my chest and panic attacks while my brain kept reliving the accident of it's own accord. I kept asking myself questions like: what if we had stopped for gas like I had kept thinking of doing? Or what if we had hung out a little longer at Bucees, or a little less? For a person who is already riddled with anxiety like myself this was hard stuff. We did stay and do the trip, and spending 2 days hearing spiritual talks was just what I needed. Since there's a million reasons this could have happened I found solace in a few ideas. Here they are:
#1 - sometimes stuff happens. This is earth life, and we agreed to it. We're all OK and I should be grateful.
#2 - Maybe if we hadn't been in this accident we would have been in a worse one somewhere else that day
#3 - Maybe us crashing into that car helped them to stop and hit the retaining wall instead of flipping over it. Perhaps us being in that accident helped a bunch of other people to live. Who knows. There are people who think I'm crazy for thinking that but I do believe that God works through others in mysterious ways. Even in this way. Maybe this wasn't the case at all. But maybe it was and if it was then I'm glad we could help prevent injury or loss of life. These were the kinds of thoughts I needed to have to help myself heal mentally from this. (And mental healing is something I'm still working on. As I type this it's June 2017 and I still think about it every single time I drive.)
The one thing I know for sure is, we were absolutely being watched over by protecting angels. Even though this happened quickly it felt like it was in slow motion and I felt a helping presence with us in and around the van the entire time.
Lillie's first (and hopefully only) ride in the back of a police car.
He was kind enough to take us to the police station to wait for Grandma and Aunt Jen to pick us up.
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