I wrote this essay on May 15, 2008. It had only been 4 months since the accident, and I chose to write down my feelings and thoughts about that night for a narrative writing assignment in my freshman English class.
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It was Sunday, January 27, 2008--a day I will not soon forget. My older brother and I, both attending BYU-Idaho, were driving back up to Rexburg after a weekend at home in Utah, where Steven had gone to do his Army National Guard duties. The night was dark and cold, and earlier that evening we had found out that President Hinckley had passed away.
As Steven drove the jet-black Jeep Cherokee, nicknamed “The Tank” by our dad, I dozed off, mourning the death of the prophet I grew up with and thinking of the legacy he would leave. We were about two hours south of Rexburg, in the Malad Pass, when the air started to get colder and we could hear the wind howling outside. Steven asked me to change the music on his iPod from a finished talk by Elder Jeffery R. Holland to something more up-beat: Lynyrd Skynyrd. Steve had just returned from his mission to Georgia in August 2007, and had gained a new appreciation for Country music and Southern Rock.
A few minutes later, we looked to the right of us to see a small SUV zooming past. Steven and I both looked in our side-view mirrors to see red and blue flashing lights. “Oh, great,” I thought to myself with a sigh.
In a panic, Steven began to pull over, thinking that the cop needed to get to the guy now in front of us. The snow on the side of the road gripped the jeep tires and quickly pulled us in. I loudly yelled Steven’s name and held on tight, worrying about what would happen. We suddenly began to spin and our lives somewhat flashed before my eyes. The jeep then rolled once or twice, not allowing us to see anything out of the windows. Those few seconds, which seemed like eternity at the time, are now a blur for me.
We came to an abrupt stop, with the passenger side of the jeep facing toward the starless sky. As I hung there in my seatbelt, the power of gravity pulling on me, I looked down at Steven, and surprisingly maintained my composure. We both sat there for a minute, trying to comprehend what had just happened.
“Are you okay, Nonie?” my brother questioned, sounding a little shaken up. He was a tough kid, and rarely broke down with emotion. “Yeah. Are you?” I replied, trying to remain calm.
Out the window, I saw a bright light bouncing around. I looked up to see a cop holding a standard-issue, small black maglite. As I rolled down the window with my shaky right hand, the officer asked us if we were okay and questioned us a bit to see if he needed to call an ambulance. We relayed our status to him, stating that we were fine.
Steven then climbed over me, out of the mangled jeep and into the night. The infamous southeastern Idaho wind filled the jeep and whipped through my hair viciously as I unbuckled my seatbelt and stood up in the sideways vehicle. I positioned my right foot on the middle console, using it as a ladder to exit the jeep. I was wearing only a hoodie to keep me warm and felt the winter chill of the night through my clothing as I reached the surface. I wished I had not changed into my warm furry slippers during the trip as the wet snow began to infiltrate them.
I grabbed my purse, amazingly still in the same spot under the glove box, while Steven climbed back in to get our coats. I had a small homemade quilt with me and wrapped it around my now freezing legs. Steven examined the damage, and found that it wasn’t as bad as he had thought. Only the rear window was broken and there appeared to be a few dents. The roof rack, holding a spare tire, had been ripped off, and lay a few feet away from the lifeless jeep.
As we pushed against the raging wind to reach the patrol car, I shivered and said a silent prayer. In the hard, plastic back seat of the car, I filled out a police report, barely able to keep from shaking. My notes appeared to be written by a grandmother, and I had a hard time thinking of answers to questions as thoughts raced through my head as if it were the Grand Prix. The heater wasn’t doing a great job of filling the car with warm air, and it didn’t help that the officer had left his door wide open. I closed my eyes and dreamt of going back in time, pretending that this event had never happened. We stayed in the patrol car for about 45 minutes until a tow truck came to relieve us.
The large, bearded truck driver took us to a truck-stop café in Downey, where we waited for friends to come down from Rexburg and pick us up. As we waited there for two hours, Steven called our parents to tell them the situation of “Black Cherokee Down,” while I went into the bathroom. The reality of what had just happened struck me as I faced myself in the mirror, and I began to break down. I was already sopping wet from being in the moist snow, and the tears on my face didn’t seem anything out of the ordinary.
It seemed that everything that could go wrong that night did, and we finally made it back to Rexburg at 5:30 a.m. That next morning, I discovered bruises on my left knee and seatbelt burns on my right shoulder, but no other physical damage of the wreck could be found on my body. There was glass in all of my laundry, my homework and school books were water damaged, and I was missing my phone and hair-straightener. To this day, it is hard for me to recount the emotional experience without getting teary-eyed or have flashbacks replay in my mind as if it was a scratched CD.
I know that a loving Heavenly Father was watching over Steven and me that night, and I know that He has bigger plans for us. No one knows when their time will come to return home to Him. I came to realize that hard-to-swallow concept on that fateful dark night in January when we had a close call with death.
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The memories of the accident are still very vivid in my mind, and I think about that day often. Each time I drive past the accident site in the Malad Pass, I hold my breath and offer a prayer of gratitude and thanksgiving for my life. It has taken a while for me to realize how much that event has helped me grow up, but three years later, I know it has--- in more ways than I can express.
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