The Guy I Almost Killed

Note the word ‘almost’ in the title.   All is well.   He didn’t die nor was he even maimed.   But it could have happened.   

This evening my husband had a meeting followed by a movie date with one of our neighbors husbands (who is as enthusiastic about going to the movies as I’m not.)   I took the children to dinner and then headed back to drop my daughter off for her play session with her therapist, Ms. Dhruti.    

It was as we were driving in the now early-evening darkness on a relatively big street that I yelled out, “oh my God!” and hit the brakes.   There was not one, but three people dashing across the multi-laned street from the strip mall to the apartment complex and they were entirely too close to the car as far as I was concerned.   

The children asked why I’d yelled and I explained that I almost hit someone with the car and that person would have been hurt very badly had I done so.   I told them I didn’t think I’d ever been that close to hitting someone and it had scared me.   Here’s the thing though: did I not see them when I should have?   Was I not paying attention?   I was upset at myself.    Yes, they were running in the middle of traffic, wearing dark clothing, in the dark, no where near a cross walk when the lights on either side of the area were green, but still, my job as a driver is to watch for hazards.

I was shaken.  Maybe I wasn’t that close.   It was likely the people (including the one that was quite close to my car) were making their own choice on how fast they needed to move to get out of the way and weren’t relying on me seeing them at all, but it didn’t feel like that on my end when they came into view from my headlights.  

We dropped off my daughter and then my son and I left, heading back in the direction I’d just come.   Shortly after driving through the intersection I saw another darkly dressed person crossing the road ahead of me.   Then half-way between the stop lights there were three people standing in the middle of the street on the divider, waiting for an opening to dash between cars.    

So it wasn’t just once and it’s not just one person making the deathly dash across that street.   Still, I’m going to be hyper-aware whenever I go through there again after tonight’s experience. 

The Big Boy Update:  I was in the process of telling my son he did not need to wear his rain boots today and he needed to change into his other shoes when he told me, “I get to choose what shoes I wear.”   I stopped, thought and said, “yes, you can make that choice.”   We discussed as long as he was not choosing inappropriately (such as wearing crocks to school) then he could make the choice now.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Ms. Dhruti.   My daughter has had only one “play date” with Ms. Dhruti, her play therapist, and already she feels like they’re long lost friends.   She has been asking when she could go play with Ms. Dhruti again and today was the day.   When she was done with her session, she told me all about the fun things they did in the play room at her office.   Next week my husband and I have a meeting with Ms. Dhruti to find out what she’s learned.    Sadly, we’ll be missing Ms. Dhruti for several weeks after that as she must return to India due to the death of one of her parents.