That is a blessing of bad dreams, they are quickly forgotten.
While Edna Mae slept in our bed, with opened mouth, and damp hoarse breath, but less agitation than before, I felt my own agitation gradually subside; and a feeling of gratitude filled my heart. For it seemed to be decided, I was not meant to put my dear wife out of misery. And it was not so clear, that God did not have a special destiny for Luther Dunphy.
Quietly I switched off the light and slid beneath the covers beside the female body.
“Thank you, God. You have shown me the way as I have prayed You would.”
SOON AFTER THIS, without informing my dear wife I became a member of Operation Rescue, which I discovered through the Army of God newsletter. In all, I would attend only three meetings and at these, I would not speak. But, with the others, I would vow to lay my life on the line for Jesus.
THE LOST DAUGHTER
In January 1998 it happened. Though I saw the other vehicle turning out onto the highway I could not brake my vehicle in time.
In a lightly falling snow it happened. And the highway beginning to glaze over with a thin glittering film of ice.
This too was a turn in my soul. Jesus, forgive me!
Some distance ahead saw the pickup continuing out onto the highway through the stop sign. At the County Line Road this was, just outside town. Where I would drive sometimes, to the county landfill. It is not a much-used road and so there is no traffic light only just a stop sign. In a lightly falling snow the pickup was not so visible as it would have been in bright sunshine for the chassis was of no-color like stone worn smooth.
When you are driving on the state highway north of Muskegee Falls the speed limit is fifty-five miles an hour. There are few traffic lights.
So suddenly this happened, the pickup in the farthest-right lane.
Always there is a refusal to see what your eyes are seeing, when it is a terrible sight. When another has dared to behave so willfully and in violation of the law. For this was what’s called a rolling stop and it is in violation of the law.
Returning home from a morning of Saturday chores, and less than a mile from home. And in my distracted state—(for there is much to think about when your workhours have been cut back by one-third and in a family of five children of whom one has been diagnosed with a neurological condition)—seeming to hesitate for just a moment, a fraction of a moment, thinking—No. You are not going to push out onto the highway. Not in front of me.
It is not like me, to think in such a way. Except sometimes behind the wheel of my vehicle when others seek to cut me off or take advantage. And even then, when turning at a light, a left-turn for instance, it is (usually) my custom to allow the driver in the opposite lane to turn first, out of friendliness; for a young minister who was much admired, in Toledo, had behaved in such a way, in imitation of Jesus, and had made an impression upon me. Also it is rare for me to speed on any road, for “anger management” has taught me to master such aggressiveness, as it is called, on the road as elsewhere.
Turning the other cheek as Jesus bade us is just good sound advice, we were told. The person who is hurt by anger, is you.
But it seemed, the pickup at County Line Road had scarcely slowed its speed before continuing out into the busy highway. Whoever was at the wheel of the vehicle could see how traffic in the farthest-right lane was speeding toward him and could gauge (it is to be supposed) that there was (probably) not sufficient time for him to turn onto the highway and increase his speed to prevent a collision, yet boldly he proceeded just the same.
He would be a young man, I guessed. A teenager.
Possibly a man of my age. But not a woman, and not an elderly man.
From somewhere close by came a terrible sound of a horn, or horns. And even as my foot leapt to the brake, to press down hard, it was too late to avoid a collision with the vehicle directly in front of me, that was traveling at a speed more or less identical to my own, but now was being braked by its driver, to avoid hitting the pickup in the lane ahead; and without thinking, for there was no time to think, I turned the wheel of my vehicle sharply to the left, and pressed down the brake pedal even as the tires were skidding on the ice-film. Within seconds there was a three-vehicle collision even as—(as we would afterward learn)—the pickup continued on the highway, in the right lane, speeding away without (it seemed) a backward glance; and the guilty driver never apprehended.