In Which True Love Wins

It was a week that began with a bone-chilling cold snap, and nearly ended in tragedy. On Thursday, my husband was nearly killed in a terrible car crash on icy roads. Rest easy, though, tender reader, for this story has a happy ending. In the end, true love wins.

We got less than an inch of new snow overnight on Thursday, but with the local temperature being only 15 degrees F (about -10 C), any moisture froze quickly, and local roads became extremely slick in spots. I was the lucky one. My drive to work occurred without incident. And in fact, I got to stop and watch a really stunning sunrise, with cows.

The phone rang in my office in mid-morning, and when I checked the caller ID, I knew something was very wrong. The number calling was my home phone, and nobody was supposed to be there at that time.

I picked up immediately. The voice on the other end was my husband, and I could tell by the sound of it that it wasn't good news. In fact, the news was very bad. "Are you sitting down?" he asked me. "I just totaled my car. I was nearly killed TWICE this morning."

He went on to tell me the details. The roads had been wet, but not icy, near where we live. But heading south on route I-99, his car hit a slippery patch of black ice as he attempted to change lanes on a bridge at Tyrone, over the Little Juniata River.

The car ping-ponged back and forth, hitting the cement dividers multiple times. He fought the wheel with all his strength, struggling - and failing - to regain control of the slide. He was successful, though, in avoiding flipping the car, and miracle of miracles, it did not end up in the river below.

When he finally came to a stop, both airbags had deployed. A first responder stopped to render aid; moved the car off the road and put the four-ways on; made a few phone calls; suggested that my husband might be most comfortable waiting in the car until the police and a local tow truck would come. And then he left.

However, my husband, who has seen (with me) too many of those horror movies and awful news clips where someone hits the wrecked car by the side of the road, got out of the car and walked to the top of the entrance ramp to a safer vantage point to wait for the cops and a tow truck.

He told me that as he stood there waiting, none of the passers-by seemed to look at him. And he wondered for a minute if he might, in fact, be dead, and just didn't know it. So he pinched himself to make sure that he was real. And he was. He could see the sunrise on one side, and on the other, the little building for the justice of the peace, where we got married in October 2008.

And then he turned around to look at his car, just in time to see a woman traveling at a high rate of speed also lose control on the bridge and plow into his car, spinning it back into the path of traffic. Had he been sitting in the car at the time (as had been suggested), he would most surely be dead now. Emergency responders immediately closed the highway.

The windshield and all the windows of the woman's car exploded on impact, after she hit her head on the windshield. She was hysterical. Family members were called. They all stood there and talked, and my husband (who works at a rehab hospital and often deals with people with head trauma) told them to keep an eye on her for the first 24 to 48 hours, and he explained what signs to watch for.

The first cop to arrive on the scene apologized for being late. He said his first task of the day had been a domestic disturbance case; his first moments of the morning had been spent gazing down the barrel of a man's shotgun.

He investigated the accident scene a bit, asked some questions, then informed my husband, "You did a hell of a job, sir." After the police came, PennDOT trucks came by and treated the bridge several times.

The car had been totaled, my husband told me, but thank God, he himself was relatively uninjured. His wrists and hands were sore from fighting the wheel. He had airbag burns on his hands. His chest was bruised from the seatbelt. His neck was sore, but he thought he would be all right.

The tow truck company he picked was a local one, stationed about a mile from our house. The driver had dropped my husband off at our home on the way; and would deposit the ruined car in a lot near the towing company in town.

My husband went over his experience in detail that evening, remembering and recounting more details. He said he thought it was interesting that he could see the justice of the peace, where I had married him five years ago to save his life (read a short version of that story here).

I asked him if he wanted me to come right home, but he said no. I had meetings to attend to. We spoke several times over the next few hours. He called again, giving me more details of the crash. He mentioned that he was feeling all keyed up and would go take a long walk in the woods.

When I arrived home at the end of my day, he was home again, feeling a bit more settled, and talking on the phone with the insurance adjuster, who said he would come by to see the car the next day.

We spent the evening sitting together in the living room watching mindless movies on TV. He recounted further details as he remembered them. I told him how grateful I was that he was alive; how the car could be replaced, but he could not.

The next day (Friday) I worked at home. That morning, my husband spoke with the insurance company several times. The adjuster confirmed that the car was totaled, spoke with him about some numbers, and told him he could go and remove his personal items from the car before it would be sent to salvage. So that is what my husband did. And when he was done, he came back home and got me, and brought me along to see (and photograph) his ruined car one last time.

And when we went and saw his car, it looked pretty normal in spots, and pretty awful in spots. Both bumpers had come off, and someone had tucked them into the back seat, where they looked pretty ridiculous. My husband is very attached to his cars, and he is an excellent winter driver. This experience has been a terrible shock to him: he is very sorry to lose a favored car, but understands how fortunate he was for his life to be spared - twice - on a winter morning turned deadly.

We stopped before we left the car there, and took one last long look back. And said good-bye to the car, which had served him well. In the end, the car did its final and most important task: it saved my husband's life.

I thought about posting one of the photos of his poor ruined car here, but the truth is I may not ever want to look at those again. So I will not immortalize them here.

Instead, I went home and I put our two wedding rings together. And took a few pictures of them. The ring on the top is mine. The slightly more battered one on the bottom is his. They belong together, world without end, amen.

When we were married, we were married in such an awful rush that we never had time to buy wedding rings. The ring he put on my hand on my wedding day was a diamond ring he had bought me several years before. And the ring I put on his hand was a favorite ring he already owned.

A week or two later, while shopping in town, we found this pair of silver rings whose inscription seemed perfect (especially if you know that my husband and I dated for 22 years before getting married): True Love Waits.

When he told me about standing from his vantage point over his own wrecked car and looking at the justice of the peace office where we had been married, I laughed. And told him, "I married you once to save your life, but I'm not sure what I could have done to help you on this day. I could try marrying you again, if you like."

I do not know how many angels were watching over my husband on that day. But I do know how very fortunate he was to live; how fortunate we are to be together.

And we know there are no promises that every time, a life will be spared. But on some days - as on this day - true love wins.

The soundtrack: Pat Benatar and Martina McBride, with We Belong.

Whatever we deny or embrace
For worse or for better
We belong, we belong
We belong together