And not the html kind.
Scold me if you want to but I have to tell you something.
I live in California.
We aren’t supposed to talk on our cell phones without a Bluetooth device while we are driving. That doesn’t work too well for me as is evidenced by THIS post.
We aren’t supposed to text and drive.
I think both rules are good ones.
And I also think rules are made to be broken occasionally, otherwise, we wouldn’t have gravity. Is that clear now?
I broke a rule. I checked a text and I sent a text. While in a car. As the driver. In my own defense, I was on private property – the church where my son has choir - and hadn’t yet entered the “no phone zone.” I was sitting at a stoplight ready to exit the church property when a text came in. Much is going on right now with my stepfather’s issues and so I looked. It was a dear friend and I could have decided to look later, but I didn’t. I flipped open my phone, read a kind and supportive message, and typed a two word reply. I was on the last two letters of my reply when my son said, “The light is green.”
Instead of beginning my entrance into the intersection, I finished those letters (because no one was behind me), pressed ‘send,’ and then looked up to proceed – these three actions took three seconds.
Just at that moment as I was removing my foot from the brake, a car came careening through the intersection at 50 mph running a red light. It came from around a curve to my left and I would have never seen it. Very likely it would have killed me and possibly my son. I almost always look left and right before I proceed because this is THE craziest state for people who push to make it through the yellow light. The guy couldn’t have been pushing. It had been red too long. He never saw it, would be my take. And my looking left and right wouldn’t have revealed him to me because of the angle of the road.
My son’s jaw dropped and he said, “Do you realize that text message just saved our lives?!” And I got chills, and then tears. He was exactly right. I proceeded through the intersection and then had to pull over. It wasn’t my day, our day, to die. It wasn’t the other driver’s day to die.
I’m not advocating the flagrant flaunting of rules. These two are especially good. It’s just that all our actions fall under a higher set of rules and our days and times are ordered.
While I was pulled over, I called my friend and told her, tearfully, what had just transpired. She got chills because she almost didn’t send the message. She had sent one about ten minutes earlier and then got busy with the house, the dogs, etc. But something kept working at the back of her mind to send the second text. And that was the one.
It could be argued that had I not responded to the text I may have been more aware. And that is a possibility. But I don’t think so. My head has been elsewhere with all that’s going on and I’m not at the top of my highly attenuated driving game. I think I needed something to stop me for a few life-changing moments.
Don’t worry, though. I will presume this was a once-in-a-lifetime event where the phone is concerned and won’t be driving while under the influence of texting. I think the real text message from the One who cares about us the most was, “Wake up!” And that one, I’m answering.
© 2009
