Borrowed Time

“No, I already told you that I had to be out of the house by 8 am.”

I look at my watch, and it is already 7:30 and I’m barely finished getting ready.

“What?” My wife yells from downstairs asking if I want anything to eat. “Yes, sure but I probably can’t eat all of it.” She says something about making something small but I don’t hear the rest of what she says

I’m going to the same place I’ve worked at for the past 12 years and I’ll be driving the same way I always drive. But today is a little different, I happen to have some clients coming in at 9 am which is why I’m rushing around, otherwise I wouldn’t care as much.

My wife yells from downstairs again, breakfast is ready and she asks me about my work stuff;

I tell her that I already packed my computer up and it’s all by the door.

I’m rushing through the kitchen, my wife made me some coffee and a piece of toast with peanut butter on it.  She knows that I’m stressed out and is trying to reduce the stress that I’m feeling by taking some of the load off but for some reason all I can do is add to it by getting angry with her for not helping things move faster.

I reach for the coffee mug on the kitchen counter but I mis-judge where it is an knock it to the floor, the mug shatters, coffee gets on my clothes and I need to change.  I get angry and raise my voice which I immediately regret. I don’t have time for the aftermath of my explosion or the clean-up of the mug because I know if I’m late I’ll be stuck in traffic and be late for the meeting.  I rush upstairs to change, not what I wanted to wear and now 5 minutes past when I should have to leave. I can hear my wife cleaning up downstairs and I feel terrible for my reaction but I can’t stop thinking about how I need to be on the road to make it to this meeting on time. I make my way back to the kitchen, I need to apologize before I leave.

“I’m sorry for blowing up like that, this meeting has really got me on edge and I know I’ll be sitting in traffic at this point which is no excuse.”

My wife gives me a look of understanding but she is hurt, I can tell that it is a deep hurt and I see it and feel it but I have to go.  I squeeze her arms, kiss her and tell her I love her, she kisses my cheek and tells me to go before I’m even more late.

I rush out the door and into the car, I have to make it up to her, once I get through today and this meeting.  The total ride to work is about 40 minutes, most of this ride is done on the highway and leaving any later than 8 gets you trapped in traffic but maybe today things might be different, although I feel like they won’t be.

I’ve hit every green light and make it to the highway, traffic is moving smoothly, this is very strange - I look at the clock on the dash cluster and think that I just might make it in time.

I’m about 10 minutes away and get off the exit - I can see the business park where I work, there are two major intersections and I’m at a red light of the first one.  I’m about 5 cars back, I’m looking at the cars in front of me figuring out how this will all work out when the light turns green. The cars going in the opposite direction have stopped, I looked and see that that we now have the green and my lane starts to go.  No sooner do the cars start moving when the car in front gets obliterated. After the light had turned red, it seems like an oil truck ran the red light and demolished the whole car, took it out of the intersection and continued to drive with it in the grill of the oil truck.  People started to get out of their car to look at what had happened. The truck had veered and crashed into oncoming traffic and took the lead car with it and now there was mass confusion at this intersection, people were honking and basically just driving wherever at this point.  I didn’t know what do to, I was stunned.  After a minute or two someone came over and knocked on my window; I slowly looked over then rolled it down.  I saw their lips moving as they were pointing towards where I worked then at the car and at one point they had their hands on their heads, maybe they did that to point out how crazy this all was or that they had never seen anything like that before - I just continued to nod until they walked away.  At that point the cops had shown up along with ambulances and fire trucks, I didn’t see much else after that I just remember, the fire trucks and ambulances blocked the scene and an officer was in the intersection getting traffic going and the next thing I know I was sitting in the parking lot of work. I saw other people filing in since they were sitting in traffic as well and groups were congregating pointing and talking about the accident but I just continued to sit in my car.  I don’t know how long I had been sitting in my car but my phone had been going off, I had heard something but it wasn’t registering then when I snapped out of it and grabbed my phone, it was 9:30.

Shit, not good.

I reached in the passenger seat and grabbed my bag but stopped with my hand on the shoulder strap, my phone in my other hand.  I looked at my phone and the missed calls, they were from my wife, my parents, my brother called and possibly a scam. I guess the news had gotten out about the accident and where it was which is why everyone was calling me.  I dropped the shoulder strap of my work bag, looked down at my phone and called my wife, work can wait.

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I woke up this morning feeling really good, I didn’t know why but I decided to get an early start to the day.  I had been thinking about it for some time that I wanted to start running in the morning so here we go, I started out with a light 3 miles.  I decided to keep that pace for couple weeks and see how it went.  I got back home my wife and kids were still sleeping, I needed to leave the house a little earlier today for a meeting but I was going to get some breakfast ready for them before I left.  I showered and got ready but I couldn’t be quiet enough because my wife got up.

“I was going to surprise you and the kids with breakfast”, I told her

“I had a feeling", she said, “which is why I got up to help you, I know you have a big day, no reason to take all this on your own.” She said as she put her arms around me

We embraced like we did when we were young, I never wanted it to end - her head buried in my chest and the smell of her hair, I inhaled deeply.  She pulled her head back and kissed me, then playfully pushed me towards the stairs and implored me to finish getting ready before we got ourselves into trouble down here.  I laughed and gave her a tickle before I headed upstairs to finish up.  I got out of the shower and heard my wife getting the kids up, the normal arguments of not wanting to get up and the promise of pancakes to lure them out of bed. When they finally got downstairs the normal arguments and morning banter brought a smile to my face.

All together downstairs, we had a nice breakfast.  It was good to sit with my family in the morning, see them laughing and smiling.  To see what their hopes were for the day and also their fears and talk to them about it all.  I looked at my watch and told them I had to finish up, I had gotten up early to get in early for a meeting.  I hugged my kids, they ran off to go get ready for school.  I helped my wife clean up, I hugged and kissed her and told her I would see her after.

I got in the car and head towards work.  It was great that traffic was working in my favor this morning, a normal ride to work takes 20 minutes and I’m here in 15, this might actually be a good day.  I can see the business park that I work at but there are two major intersections and I’m at a red light currently of the first intersection.  I’m the first car waiting for the light to turn green and normally I would be looking at the cycle of lights timing when I would be getting the green but today I’m thinking about what a great morning I had and how lucky I am. I was thinking about taking my wife and kids out to eat this weekend, there’s a new Thai restaurant that I’ve been wanting to try but I’m not sure if the kids will like it, they should like Pad Thai - it’s basically nutty spaghetti.  The light turns green and as I start driving into the intersection all I can think about is how lucky I am…