Usually this isn’t the best sight.
Your vehicle stopped with a police cruiser in the rearview mirror.
But it’s not be for me. Let me back up.
* * *
I headed to the store to buy ingredients for chili. Because…
a. It’s the Superbowl.
b. My 18 year old invited other 18-year-old males over to watch the game.
Earlier in the day, it dawned on me that 18-year-old boys expect food.
Leaving the store at 4 p.m., I thought 4 p.m. on Sunday — always the lightest traffic on Main Street.
(Never let your guard down. Even on quietest hour in entire week on Main Street.)
A short time later, a small red car flipped out my windshield. Just seconds in front of me, I slowly pulled my car over and thought, Did that just happen?
This could easily be a post on how life can change on a dime. How I think of my son in a car and conclude we should never let our children drive anything but Big Wheels.
But it’s not. After I got home and started the chili, my knees still a little wobbly from witnessing the crash, what hit me was how everyone stopped and helped.
Within seconds of impact. People were out of their cars seeing if the passengers were alright and trying to get them out of the car.
Men, women, all races, all incomes. People still dressed from church, people still in stinky workout clothes.
I helped women pick up all the contents from the trunk that had spilled onto the road. Cleaners, bars of Ivory soap, something that looked like it used to be a cap to deodorant. All the while, men and women — all ages and all sizes — talked to the women and kept them calm.
This country seems so divided. People angry at each other.
But when it mattered, when people just reacted, we do care for one another.
When one is down — we do rush in.
No matter if the Giants or Patriots win.
We care.
