I did not announce “family stories” as a theme for the whole challenge because I knew there would be days when I would depart from it. Today is one of those days.
Longboat Key – so called because it is shaped like a, well, like a longboat and is about ten miles long with a small drawbridge on the north end and another bigger bridge on the south end going over to Sarasota, the mainland. I was working today on the very north end. I finished my job and headed home. There was a long line of stopped cars as I came to the drawbridge and I assumed a boat was passing through and the bridge was up. A short wait and we moved forward, and then we stopped again. This time the wait was unusually long.
An ambulance came up behind me. The road going over the bridge is only two lanes and the ambulance had no opposing traffic coming from the other direction so it went past. Then a fire truck also went past, siren going, lights flashing. Two police vehicles followed. A couple cars in the line ahead of me turned around on the bridge and headed back south. For me, getting home would be well over an hour if I had to go all the way down to Sarasota to hit the mainland. Surely whatever it was could get cleared up in less time than that. I would wait.
I looked at facebook on my phone, I took some pictures of the boats lined up on the sandbar. About 45 minutes later some pedestrians came across the bridge and were stopping to talk to people waiting in their cars. “The bridge is closed. They are turning traffic back on both sides. Turn around.” they told me. I got out and walked a short way, not even to the middle of the bridge and saw what was left of a small bright green moped crumpled in the middle of the lane. Ahead of it was a black sedan with the back window completely smashed out. A young man was sitting down outside the sedan with his head in his hands. The policeman guarding the scene, came over and confirmed that the bridge would be closed for some time – best to turn around. There was going to be accident reconstruction which probably meant a fatality had occurred.
I headed south,
thinking about the two hours I was spending making the half hour trip home,
thinking about missing lunch and being hungry,
thinking about the man sitting beside his car,
about the hole in his window and the smashed moped.
Someone’s life took a very unexpected turn on that bridge a few hours ago. Someone would not be celebrating Easter in the morning, or perhaps ever again. And yet for me, it was only a detour. I was shaken.
I Just Have to Say... 
Sometimes life takes you, shakes you hard, then everything falls into a true perspective. Other times you get off a little lighter because somebody else takes the heavy lifting. Thanks for lightening the burden.
This kind of story always reminds me how lives can change in an instant. My POSSLQ is a semi driver and there is a little part of me that worries every night he’s out on the road. Yes, he’s a professional, but I worry more about those who aren’t and how someone else’s decisions can end up impacting your life in unexpected ways.
I think it’s valuable to have thought about this, kind of underlines how precious life is and how fragile. Thanks for your comment.
I think it is really easy and really common to grumble when we are being inconvenienced. The traffic jam is the classic. Even when we know a traffic jam is usually the result of something bad happening, we’re just so darned self-centered. While it is a common, even understandable response, it is very sobering when you come face to face with the reality. My coffee was late and someone died… I think we all need to take that little lesson more often than we do. Thanks for sharing this in your A to Z.
You got it, exactly. Thanks for reading Laura.