The Christmas Rock

Friday - December 15, 2006

I was so excited. My daughter was coming to spend a week for the holidays! With her were her husband and her son. My fiancé and I took the trip up north 5 hours away to get them and bring them home for the holidays. Oh, my word this is what I have needed to make my holidays perfect! We traveled in his truck. The back seat would be a tight fit for the kids, but we would manage. We set off a little later than I had hoped. I had a few last minute details I needed to attend to. So after the bows were placed just so, and the floors vacuumed extra well, the cookies put out on the table, off we go. I'm a notorious car sleeper, so I packed my blankets and my music and Wally took off. I couldn't stand it. Every 45 minutes or so my sweet daughter would call asking, "Where are you now? Drive FASTER!" I understood her sentiment perfectly! How I wanted, needed, yearned to be there with her. We got there without much toodo. It was perfect driving weather, clear and dry, not too much traffic. We got there and she ran to me and I swung her up and held her tight. We laughed through our tears of joy and love. Three months was a long time to be apart. We sat and talked for a bit with her in-laws while the menfolk loaded up the truck. We were off again in the twilight of the evening. We stopped on the way home frequently, the baby wasn't feeling good. He had a cold so we stopped for decongestant. The kids were hungry so we stopped for a late dinner. The baby being in the car we stopped once or twice for a smake and diaper change. We laughed and talked and laughed some more. The time was flying by even with all the stopping, I felt joy and peace and so damned happy.

That is until 12:30 that night. We had just junctioned onto I-69 off I-96 a bit north of Lansing and still over an hour away from home. I was talking with her husband. I was leaning toward the middle of the seat with my head between the seats. My back was to the window. Her hubby was leaning toward the middle with his head stuck between the seats talking with me. Out of nowhere my daughter let out a blood curdling scream and throws herself over the baby. In slow motion in my head, but a nanosecond in real time, I reached toward my daughter then turned toward the window. Glass was flying inward, ricocheting and bouncing off everything. The noise was horrendous. The wind and glass was spraying everywhere. Wally was calm and sure as he pulled the truck off the freeway. We took stock of each other. Wally ran around the truck and grabbed me and turned me toward hin, "Are you okay? Dear God, are you okay?" Were we all okay? What in the world happened? Oh my word, what is happening?

I grabbed the cell phone and dialed 911. I was trembling, the woman heard me asking, shouting, if the baby was okay. The words wouldn't come. .. . "I don't know what happened. No, I don’t know where we are. .. . Send the police, I think someone shot at the truck . .. . No I'm not sure. .. ." Wally took the phone from me, I was trembling to hard to talk. I wanted to see my daughter and the baby. I knew her husband was okay, he had jogged up the side of the freeway to see the mile marker. He couldn't find it. He came back to the truck and then ran off again, back the way we had came. Wally talked with the 911 operator. I started wiping glass out of the truck seats, but had no luck without gloves. My daughter wanted her husband to come back. He wasn't gone long. He wanted to see the sign on the overpass we had just gone under, so we could tell the police exactly where we were. It wasn't marked. What he did see brought on the tears that hadn't come. He saw 2 boys, almost grown huddling under the viaduct. Then he saw the rock in the road. He gave chase for a moment and thought better of it. If these people would throw a rock at us moving 75 miles an hour in the pitch of night, what would they do to him if he caught him? These two had come down from the overpass to huddle together and watch the mayhem they had created. To see if the moving target they hit carried a bloody massacre with it. He came back and as he got closer we saw he was carrying an objet. It took both hands to hold it. It was the rock.

We calmed down as we waited for the police to appear. Wally cleared out the truck of glass, he had found some gloves in the truck. We discussed the situation. Someone had aimed a rock, thrown it and damn the consequences on the target. Unbelievable as it was, it happened there on the freeway to us. We hugged each other and kept patting the baby who only cried once when his momma screamed. We closed my blanket into the door to stave off the wind as best we could from the baby, and 50 minutes after it happened got back on the road. The police never showed up.

We stopped at the next rest area to change the baby's clothes. There were shards of glass all over his clothes. We adults took off our clothes and shook them off. I emptied my shoes and watched glass fall out, hearing it ping on the tile floor. We got back in the truck after hugging each other once more and drove the rest of the way home.

The rock had first hit the mirror on the truck, shattering it. Then it bounced up onto the window , exploding it as well. Three inches to the right and it would have come through the windshield. We got the window replaced Monday morning.

Late at night, I close my eyes and I see the mayhem that could have occurred. I open my heart and I see the hand of God reaching out and swatting a rock out of the path of destruction, leaving just enough chaos for us to realize the love we have. For the love of God we are safe at home enjoying the holidays and truly giving worship to the Lord Christ's birth.

The rock sits under our Christmas tree.

It is a very Merry Christmas.

And I am smiling.....

love me later...tj