Spring Break

It was a typical spring morning in a rural south Texas town. Blue sky, a few puffy cumulous clones floating around, and a slight breeze blowing through the mesquite trees. A few residents were gathered outside the gas station/general store drinking coffee, enjoying this glorious South Texas Spring weather.

We were just a couple of College kids from SMSU on our way to South Padre Island. After driving all night we were just a couple of hours from our destination. Seven days of sun, sea, and sand. While my friend took his turn behind the wheel I was taking a well-deserved nap.

Suddenly I woke up from my nap to see a trailer stopped on the road ahead with our car headed straight toward it at 65 MPH.

LOOK OUT! I screamed.

We swerved to the left just in time to avoid a rear-end collision. The right side of our car smashed into the trailer, the impact sending us into a spin. We finally came to rest on the roadside 40 to 50 yards from the trailer we just hit. Miraculously no one was hurt.

After the Crash

Have you ever had a near death experience?  It changes your life. I attended church as a kid and always said I believed in God. But this was the first time I felt God was looking out for me personally. Andy had fallen asleep at the wheel. Had I not awoken when I did we would have smashed into that trailer and most certainly been killed. But God had other plans for my life.

Nine months after my near fatal collision I met Linda. We soon graduated and began climbing the corporate ladder. Over the next few years, we got married, traveled across the US and Europe, purchased our dream home, and had Lauren and Amanda. as Saturday Night Live ’s Garrett Morris would say: “Life was veddy veddy good to me.” I felt wide awake and so alive.

Little did I know this castle of sand I was building would soon come tumbling down.