As I sit down to write this post on Sunday, April 9, 2023, I note that it is two years almost to the day since my porch was demolished by a passed out driver. Today, I am enjoying the birds singing and a slight breeze tickling my bare arms while I sit outside. The temperature is perfect for sitting on one of my blue swivel rocking chairs. Every now and then, I hear gurgles of water from the basement being pumped out. I am grateful the sump pump is working. I sit in gratitude and solitude.
Minding My Own Business
A cold, rainy Saturday in April
Two years ago, however, was a completely different story. Dennis, my brother, had flown back to Illinois for just a few days to check in on Mom after her 80th birthday. Those few days were rough on all of us because we were dealing with a mom whose health was declining in difficult ways. All the moments were not tough, though, as my two siblings and I had some time to hang out in ways we had been missing for quite a while.
April 10, 2021, was a cold, rainy Saturday. Dennis had borrowed my car, so he could meet a friend for breakfast. As I waited for him to return, I sat on my couch reading. It was 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning. I was in my own home, minding my own business, just marking time until I took Dennis to the Peoria airport so that he could return to North Carolina.
What the Haystack!
Calling an emergency number
I heard a disturbingly loud crash and turned my head to look out the window that was behind me. Surprisingly, I saw a vehicle drive by. This was quite startling because the front of my house sits way back from the street. From where I was sitting, I should not have been able to see a vehicle drive by.
I said, “What the haystack!” and grabbed my phone. I dialed 9-1-1 just like I’ve been told a thousand times to do in an emergency. I was so proud of myself. For the first time in my life, I was not panicking. I actually stayed calm! However, the call did not go through. The message on my phone’s screen told me that I was dialing an emergency number. “Yes. Yes, I know I’m dialing an emergency number,” I told the phone, “because I actually HAVE an emergency.”
Of course, that didn’t fix the problem, so I opened the front door and saw the driver get out of the Jeep that had just decimated my porch. I asked if he was OK at the same time as I looked to my neighbors’ house where I saw them standing on their front porch with the phone to their ear looking at my now broken front porch. Thank goodness they were able to actually use their phone to notify the authorities of the emergency. The driver seemed dazed, but seemingly unhurt.
A Plethora of Emergency Responders
The sodden world around us
He got back in the Jeep and tried to move it, but it was held in place by the gas meter that also was demolished in the broken porch incident. I could hear and smell the gas spewing from the now open pipe. I prayed that the driver’s attempts to extricate his Jeep from the meter would not send sparks to the outflowing gas and blow up the neighborhood.
Fortunately, it had been raining for quite some time prior to this incident, so the sodden world around us might just have been another saving grace. Police came. Firetrucks came. An ambulance came. We had a plethora of emergency responders, who mostly didn’t have far to come since I live only two blocks from the fire station. They were able to stop the flow of gas. They checked out the health of the driver, who was, indeed, unhurt. They called a tow truck to get the Jeep and the gas meter untangled.
Counting Miracles
All of these things
My brother left his breakfast and called our sister, who also joined us at the now Home of the Broken Porch. His friend ended up taking him to the airport since I now had other plans. The Jeep had veered and not run directly into the house where I had been sitting on the couch. Instead, it ran parallel to the house, missing the bay window. The Jeep’s driver was able to change a flat tire and then drive his Jeep away. My neighbor’s father, who owns a construction company, came out on the cold, rainy Saturday to shore up the porch’s dangling roof, so that the gas meter repairman could install a new meter. All of these things, I count as miracles.
By late afternoon, all the helpers had resumed their own regularly scheduled lives, and I was left alone to look at all the broken porch detritus and to wonder “What does this make possible?”
Sending you love for all the possibilities,
Angela Jane