I actually drove home from work yesterday in the midst of rush hour (AKA my worst enemy) and noticed to my left a plane flying abnormally low in the sky. I live in St. Paul, which isn't far from the airport, but I thought to myself that plane looks TOO low, TOO far from the airport. I even went so far as to drive out of my way towards the Mississippi to see if I was just crazy, or if there was, in fact, a plane crash disaster. It was one of those moments where I thought to myself, am I completely insane? Why would a plane just crash into the river right by my apartment? Of course I was wrong about the whole thing... and yet I mulled it over in my brain thinking to myself, what would I do if I were ever really a witness to a random disaster? How would I react? What would go through my mind?
Well anyway. Dusty and I decided to get some errands done last night at around 7 p.m. and headed out to Ikea in Bloomington. We were in desparate need of a dresser, nightstand, and bookshelf and promised ourselves that we'd be in and out of there in an hour tops. That, of course, didn't happen because we ended up testing out every sofa in the showroom and then ran into some people we knew in the warehouse. After packing up my tiny car with heavy cardboard boxes, not only were we tired, but also hungry. So, with the Mall of America being conveniently across the street from Ikea, we decided to grab some food.
Dust always parks in the same ramp at MOA because he swears it's never that busy, and I wasn't driving nor did I care, I was just itching to eat something. This was at around 8:15 p.m. now and way past my normal dinner hour. That was when we noticed heading up the ramp that there were several cars parked in the middle of the street with their hazards flashing. A Uhaul van was up ahead about 20 meters or so and something just didn't look right. We were clueless as to what was going on until a girl frantically ran up to our car and asked us for rope or anything that might help to get the Uhaul driver out of the cab of the truck. The driver had misjudged the clearance of the parking ramp ceiling, causing a concrete beam to crash onto the cab of the Uhaul. The driver was PINNED INSIDE the cab in his seat. And he was still alive.
I literally froze while Dust quickly opened our trunk. We had a rope and some bungees and he ran toward the scene to hand them off. A security guard on a bike told him to stay away until he noticed the rope. I then noticed a woman screaming on the sidewalk, hysterical, and she slumped to the ground as Dusty and I tried to figure out where to go from here. He told me that someone mentioned the driver was talking and coherent but after we saw the damage to the cab of the Uhaul truck, we both were sick- there are slim chances for someone to survive a crash like the one we saw. I took a couple pictures on my phone while Dust was handing off the rope.
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| You can see where the beam hits the drivers side, it is to the right of Dusty who was walking back to our car. At this point there were no police or emergency cars at the site of the accident and the beam had fallen on the truck about five minutes beforehand. |
I then started to contemplate the timing of events leading us to that disastrous scene: running late to get out the door, not arriving at Ikea until 7ish, spending way more time there than we hoped, bumping into friends, and deciding at the last minute to go grab a bite to eat across the street. That timeline brought us to that exact moment where we happened upon a horrible accident that neither of us EVER would have expected (nor wanted) to encounter, simply by chance.
After about an hour of being at MOA, still pretty stunned, we decided to leave. It felt so weird to walk around this enormous place full of people who were clueless to what happened outside just minutes ago. The scene walking out to the parking lot was much different than driving in. There were probably 25 police cars, 5 firetrucks, police officers and news crews EVERYWHERE. The lot where we parked was sealed off by yellow police tape and by then, I was glued to my phone waiting for an update on the news from my mom. She called to let us know the driver, a 52 year old male, had died, was still trapped in the Uhaul, and the two passengers who were with him were taken to the hospital for minor injuries. I couldn't help but think immediately of the woman I saw earlier, screaming like I have never heard anyone scream before and then slumping to the ground. It gave me the absolute worst feeling in the world to know that that man had died and we had been right there just a couple hours prior while he was still living and still holding on to some kind of hope, I'm sure. I thought about my stupid car ride home earlier. Would I ever be witness to some disastrous event in my lifetime? By the time I crawled into bed last night, I wished that I had never decided to go eat at the Mall of America. My thoughts raced back to that poor man in the Uhaul who probably had no idea that his decision to park the van would end up costing his life. Nobody deserves to go out like that.
And maybe this post makes me sound epic and all the more depressing... but it made me think back to countless times in my life where I have tried to make sense of horrible things happening to people in this world. Why does it happen? Why does God LET it happen? Even the other night, Dusty and I were watching an episode of Friday Night Lights when one of the main characters converts to Christianity and ministers to prison inmates in a bible study- and the inmates torture her with that question- Why does God allow horrible things happen to normal, good people?
Here's the thing: the character on the show (Lyla Garrity, for those of you who are FNL fans like me) did not have an answer for the prison inmates, and at the moment, I don't have an answer, either. Not only that, but I know nothing about the man who died last night. I know nothing about his life, his family, his faith, or where he's from. I hate not having an explanation for something that just seems so bizarre and unfair.
So as I'm sitting here, contamplating this weird, senseless event, my mind wandered to something that my mother-in-law gave me at my last bridal shower. It's a bookmark from Dusty's dad, Wade's, funeral, which contains an encouraging note written by Wade on the back that literally took every thought I had regarding last night and gave me peace. I could go so much more into how highly I think of Dusty's dad, and how sad I am that I never got the chance to meet him and know him... but trust me, that is a blog post for another time :) Anyway. Please read it, and if you are ever stuck in a situation like me where you can't quite wrap your head around tragedy, be comforted by these words (this is a eulogy Wade wrote for the funeral of a good friend).
As I walked alongside my friend during his illness, I was forced to ask myself two questions about God. Is He loving and a good God? And is He in control, is He powerful? If the answer is yes- and I believe they are, then it allows me to trust that what He is and does is based upon His love and power. Now I don't presume to be able to understand suffering and unjust death, like that of my friend. But there are some things that I do know to be true. God loves us. God cares for us. God grieves alongside us (as Jesus was God in flesh. I'm reminded of the time in Jesus' life when He was told a friend of His died, and He wept- God is telling us in that, that He weeps with us when He sees the pain of this broken world). God knows what it is like to face the death of a loved one, as He allowed His son, Jesus Christ, to die so that we might live eternally. God heals- my friend is now healed. He does have total and complete healing at this moment. Our prayers were answered, just not in this world.
I don't doubt that today, tomorrow, perhaps several times this week, I won't turn on the TV or read the newspaper and feel great sadness over another tragedy somewhere in this world. We do live in a broken world. However, I can try as best as I can to understand the power and love of God, and to understand that God does not abandon our feelings of pain and injustice. God does grive right alongside us. And yet in pain, suffering, death, whatever may be hurting you at any moment in your life, there is hope in the fact that God heals. Not only does he heal those that have died through the promise of eternal life, but with a faith in Christ, he heals those of us still here on Earth who are left behind in a broken world. God knows. God is with us.
I have struggled more times than I can count with my faith in the Lord. Who doesn't? However, I have also been faced with a variety of circumstances in my life that have pointed, always, at God being the master and creator of all things. The Lord is good, and he reveals that to me even in the midst of something so sad.
So I guess that's my two cents for the day, an explanation of what happened last night, and hopefully the last of depressing blog posts here as typically I enjoy writing much more about happy, random things. Sometimes it's helpful to face the hard stuff, though. Just to leave this on a lighter note, I did spend some time with my amazing husband last night after getting ready for bed watching Robot Chicken on the iPad. I know how big of a dork I am, but trust me, it was good to share a laugh after all that had happened. And it was Dusty's suggestion. Love him.
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