Painful Reminders

Not my proudest moment. But I’m going to share it anyway.

I was driving today. On a mission to get somewhere. Fast. I saw the long line of stopped traffic ahead of me and became frustrated. Clearly it was an accident. Probably caused by someone being careless I thought. And it was a fresh one. The ambulance only came 20 minutes after I had stopped.

I waited for an hour in line. Maybe longer. Then a semi driver walked up and said; “There was a fatality so it’s going to be 3-4 hours for sure. I know anytime there’s a fatality the police have to come take pictures and write up a bunch of documentation, so it’ll be a while. You can turn around take such a such road around…”.

I started zoning out. Trying not to cry as he spoke to me. I quickly said thank you and flipped a U turn in the very quiet opposite lane and headed back with tears coming down my face.

Someone had just died less than a kilometre ahead of me. And I was frustrated. Someone’s life had ended and probably many more tragically changed because of it and here I was feeling so inconvenienced. I felt ashamed, humbled and grateful. I had been reminded of a lesson I had already learned.

I hope it sticks this time.