12.22.19 — The DW Sunday Column: The Day My Wife Almost Did Not Come Home
Nothing is more jarring than to be forced to reflect what it would have been like to lose the most important person in your life.
There is a movie called Sliding Doors where life events are played out with two completely different results all based on the split-second timing of making a subway ride home or just missing the door and waiting until the next subway ride home.
Our sliding door story was: The Mercedes vs. the Subaru Outback.
The background: After a lease, we needed to buy a new vehicle. As the decision neared for the next vehicle, to me, it was finally the chance to get a Mercedes. I don’t know why. It must be a 50ish thing. Trust me, I am not a car guy. A Ford Escort to a Chevy Cavalier to a Honda Accord to a Chevy Silverado does not exactly scream Mr. Status via my Automobile.
But maybe I thought this was my chance. My chance to get the “cool car.” (Or, cool to me).
I looked for months. We actually turned the lease car in, and had only one car for months. This is ok, since I work from home. It is amazing the shopping power when you have no deadline to get a car.
At a certain point, when the one car experiment was a failure, it was time to come to a conclusion.
The sliding door…
Door #1: Buy the used Mercedes and it will sit in the garage a lot. Less money spent. My car.
Door #2: Buy a new Subaru Outback. Since it makes no sense to buy a new car and reach the 3 year and 36,000-mile mark for bumper to bumper coverage with about 2,000 total miles, I would drive the Nissan Juke, my wife’s car.
The winner… Door #2. The Outback adventures begin.
The Juke is a small car, but it is a zippy car. A little car that allows you in and out of parking lots quickly. Enough power to get on the highway quick. But the Juke is a small car.
The Outback is not a small car.
Fast forward about nine months after the purchase.
On the way to work, my wife gets hit. Car damage. A lot of damage. I get bits and pieces of information. Only one thing I heard the entire time: “I am not injured.”
While she is at work, I read the police report. I see “bathtub” in the report. I think maybe it is the name of the company the other person works for.
The story does not come together for several hours later that day…but here it is:
Driving on the highway, a fiberglass bathtub flew out of a pick-up truck and hit my wife’s Subaru Outback. It happened so fast that the details can only be recreated by looking at the damage. The dents and scratches start on the bumper, therefore, the bathtub hits road, then starts low into car….it progresses towards the front of the hood, then another flip and it hits the windshield, square, in the middle. It then flips to the top of the car.
I can’t help but think if Door #1 was picked months ago … and my wife was driving the Juke, the small car, small windshield, small everything…and in my opinion, not built to withstand the damage of a bathtub…you would not be reading this. I would still be curled up in a ball crying two months later. To think that because I wanted to buy a Mercedes, I lost my wife, it still makes me lose my breath. To think I would have to tell the story of how my wife was lost to a bathtub only has humor in it… because it didn’t happen.
As we enter this Holiday season, I have an extra, extra appreciation of all that is still normal in my life. Normal is good. Normal is ok. My advice to you is to embrace normal. Surprise your spouse with a “normal hug” and throw in the “I love you”…every chance you have.
Life can come down to a swinging door moment…and I guess we are all one bathtub away….
