1979

October 12, 1979, should have changed Daddy's life forever.  He awoke as usual to have breakfast with Mother, who had cut the last remaining roses from the garden and put them in a crystal pitcher on her kitchen table.  From the bathroom where he was shaving, Daddy could smell bacon frying and hear the sounds of utensils clinking as Mother fluffed eggwhites and folded them into the other waffle ingredients.  The bay window behind the table was opened and the fresh morning air gently wandered into the room.  Mother was busy slicing and sugaring fresh strawberries when Daddy slipped into his seat.  There was not much conversation between them as they savored their breakfast; they were conscious only of the other's chewing and swallowing.  Daddy took his napkin and wiped his face while Mother picked up her Bible to read their morning scripture verses as they always did after breakfast.  Her reading was deliberate as if she were devouring the words as she had her waffles.  When the Bible was closed, Mother and Daddy clasped hands and prayed together with special emphasis on the lives of their children and grandchildren.

The morning routine now complete, Daddy kissed his wife good-bye and set about his day selling insurance.  Birds flitted back and forth in the trees outside and called to each other with the news of their morning as Daddy got into his car and turned the key.  It could not have been a more beautiful day!  He rolled the windows down and turned the radio on to the love songs station and cruised slowly down the street toward the freeway and work.  My father's appointment that day took him to a rural area west of Fort Worth.  The drive in the country was refreshing on such a sparkling morning.  Fall was cheating winter out of some of its days, and the golden, red, and purple leaves clinging to the trees that lined the highway on either side mesmerized my father as he rode along.  He was not paying attention to the road ahead, so the bend in it took him by surprise.  To his right he noticed a work crew oiling down a dirt road that ran alongside the highway.  Trucks were coming in and out of the area hauling sand.  The construction of the access road had created oil slicks on the blacktop which were indiscernible to the driver - my father.

Just as the road began a slow upgrade, Daddy saw a truck come across it fifty feet in front of him - too late for Daddy to adequately stop.  My father's big sedan hit a large oil patch and careened out of control.  Frantically, he tried to maneuver out of the spin as his foot searched for the brakes. Suddenly the car began lurching forward at great speed, as Daddy's right foot failed to find the correct pedal and pressed hard down onto the accelerator.  The nose of the car then headed straight for the tailgate of the huge truck, and by some miracle missed it.  Daddy found himself looking up into the face of the very surprised truck driver as the car then headed straight for the cab of the truck.  Only inches from contact, the car suddenly swerved to the left and took flight, sailing through the air for fifty feet, crossing over a twenty foot deep ravine in its trajectory and shooting between two large trees before it nosed down for landing. The front end of the sedan hit a large oak tree, effectively stopping the car, which then settled down in a sand pit on all four wheels, upright.

Though the wreck happened within the space of a few seconds, to Daddy it seemed an eternity. Everything was in slow motion as he floated through the air over ravine and between trees. "Lord, is this the way I am going to end my life? Here, alone, without even a good-bye to Flossie?"  Suddenly the aromas of strawberry juice and syrup and the touch of his wife's hand as he had held it in prayer only hours before were all too vivid a recollection of a life that seemed now in the process of ending swiftly.

"No. It is not time for you, yet.  You still have some things to accomplish before you come to Me." Thought he heard a voice emanate from within the car as it sank into the sand.  Thought he had heard God.

Two wreckers dug the car out of the depths of dirt that cradled it.  The front end was heavily damaged and would ultimately require over a thousand dollars to repair; but, the man who was driving it home that evening had never felt so grateful to be alive.  The aroma of food slow-cooking in the oven assaulted his nostrils and piqued his awareness that he had left the nightmare of death for that day - cheated it out of its prize.  As his wife walked toward him to greet him with a kiss, she looked angelic - surreal - so glad was he to embrace her once again.

At dinner, Mother cried a little at the idea of losing Daddy without a real good-bye.  In contrast to the morning meal, the conversation over roast, potatoes, green beans and biscuits was animated and alive.  Both parents were  praising God for saving Daddy's life so he could do "what he still needed to accomplish."  My father had a fresh desire to serve God; a new understanding of God's love for him.

The following Sunday morning, my father heard a television preacher quote from the Bible: "This is the day that the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."  That was exactly how Daddy had been feeling since his brush with death!  Compelled to find the exact scripture verse, Daddy looked through the concordance in his Bible.  Psalm 118.  He read the entire psalm and found something even more astonishing. Verse 5. "I called upon the Lord in my distress.  The Lord answered me and set me in a large place."  That was it!  That was what God had done with the airborne car!  Set in a large sandy  place of safety, assuring Daddy that God was watching over him.

Some time later, my father wrote a letter to his dying sister.  He wanted her to be comforted by God in the last days of her life.  Within the letter, he told my aunt his near-death experience on that October day, wanting her to grasp the extent of God's love for him and her.  Curiously, nestled within the platitudes nd lofty longings of the letter was this telling sentence: "I know that He loves me, filthy and imperfect though I am; and if He can love me, how much more certain I am that He loves you."