Mom countdown - Day 14

We were supposed to have left at noon, but I was exhausted, dizzy, nauseous. I was wrapped up in my fuzzy flower blankey, couldn't get off the couch. I kept fading in and out of consciousness until 3PM. We were supposed to meet Kari at Noodles at 6PM, the cute little restaurant next to our hotel by Kari's college. We got on the road at 4. At 6:26, Steve called in on my cell. "Are you all right?" He sounded very upset.
"Of course I am," I answered. "Did you think I'd gotten into a car accident?"
"The 35W bridge collapsed."

It took a minute for the news to sink in. 35W is the bridge that runs next to the Holiday Inn Metrodome, the hotel we were staying at, just around the corner from Noodles, the restaurant we were supposed to be eating at. There was absolutely NO chance we would've ever been on that bridge, except for maybe a fluke "let's go for a walk across the bridge after dinner" kind of thing. But we WOULD'VE felt it, seen it, been right there in that climactic energy, and I know, I just know, that we were protected from that intensity by being physically prevented from getting out of the house until after the event took place. As it was, we were still 45 minutes away from the Cities when we heard the news.

What's amazing to me is that Dad called in 3 minutes after Steve called. "Are you okay? Is Kari okay?" I told Dad to turn off the TV - don't let Mom watch it. Ironically, it upset Dad more than Mom, I think. That was his home turf, where he grew up. I'm sure he knew that bridge, even thought it was only 40 years old, he'd traveled it to visit his mom and dad. The stories are absolutely unbelievable - the woman and her 3 month old that walked out of their little red car - without a scratch AFTER the pickup landed on top of it, the woman whose car spiraled from the middle buckled part of the bridge, into the water (apologies for my grammar), and crawled out, unscathed. The people rushing to get the kids off the school bus stopped next to the burning semi.

I had a feeling, so called and cancelled our reservations at the Holiday Inn. "I think they'll be taking the survivors there," I told Kari. 5 minutes later on the news they said they were taking the survivors over to the Holiday Inn. Another little miracle in my world - imagine being in the middle of all of that. It might've been all right - I thought I could do Reiki on some of them - I'm sure most of them were in shock. Witnesses said there were a lot of cars that stayed on the bridge as it fell the 64 feet, then the people just got out of their cars and walked away. Seriously, just seriously - I've got goosebumps on my legs as I'm typing. I wonder about the symbolism of it all, in the midst of these energy shifts, and I'm struck with the thought that the bridge between the old and the new has collapsed, and we can never go back. It also strikes me that there were so many miracles of people being delayed, of missing it by 5 minutes, 1 minute, being faster, on and on. It felt like the 9/11 stories to me, about getting a flat tire and so missing the train, etc. Do we ever doubt that there's a great unseen Hand in our lives, operating everything? These sweet college kids we're with were talking about "what if," and I said, "I don't believe in coincidences. I think that whoever was supposed to be on that bridge, was on the bridge, and if they weren't supposed to be on the bridge, they weren't." They just looked at me.

So we stayed with Kari last night, sleeping in her room. That was sweet of her to let us do that; saved us $400 in hotel fees for the two nights. We're off to hear her research presentation in a couple hours, then off to look at the bridge and take some pictures to show Dad. I'll try to post one here. It's very powerful, very humbling, very incredible, and I think, "yup - that's life right now - powerful, humbling, incredible."