The Road Ahead
Is it Paved with Good or Bad Intensions?
By Jennifer R. Hamner
It
was a little after midnight on July 25, 2009
when our ringing phone awoke me from a
deep slumber. I was told my ex-husband had
been in an accident and was at the hospital. I was
asked to come at once. Although he and I were
divorced, we loved each other immensely. We had
been together for twenty years and knew each
other better than we knew ourselves. It was so
automatic to get dressed and out the door quickly.
Upon arrival at the hospital, I was ushered into a
room with his mother and one of the many doctors
that would work to save his life that night. He had
been in a terrible accident; Most of the bones in his
body were broken and he had lost almost all his
blood. Despite all this injury, the impact to his head
was of the most concern. Hours in surgery ended
up that night being useless. He would surely die.
Our daughter was away at camp and I was told
to get her home so she could say goodbye. Five
hours later she arrived and as we sat on concrete
steps just outside the hospital in the parking deck,
I told her that her daddy was dead. Telling her was
the hardest thing God had ever required of me.
Seeing her kiss her daddy goodbye in the ICU
room was the second hardest.
In the days that followed, details of the accident
that claimed his life emerged. I drove to the
convenience store near the intersection where
he was killed and stood there looking at the spray
paint on the road where the police had marked his
body. His blood stained the black pavement and
as I replayed in my mind what I had been told,
I became angry. He worked for a restaurant and
had been held up at gun point just a few days
earlier as he was leaving to make the nightly
deposit. On July 25, 2009 he had finished his shift
at one location across town and was headed to
the other location to follow the restaurant manager
to the bank. He was on his way to help someone
when he lost his life. He was riding his motorcycle
and just as he crossed the main intersection, a
car pulled out in front of him. He hit the side of
ith all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own
nderstanding.” Proverbs 3:5