3.10.05

In a Heartbeat

Lori consumes my thoughts today. She was my first husband's second wife. They have been divorced a long time, but have remained quite good friends. My daughter called me this morning and said that maybe it was strange to ask me to pray for my ex-husband's second ex-wife, but she was asking anyway.

Lori was driving home Saturday night after spending time with her son and his father. I guess she wanted to spend the night, but her son's dad didn't think that was such a good idea. Lori was driving a quiet, Indiana road late at night, and leaned over to reach for a cigarette. And in the next instant, there was a crash, and a body on her windshield. Out of fear? shock? whatever happened to her mind in that split second, she kept driving. Several miles down the road she stopped and called 911. She was arrested and charged with several offenses (from what I read from an article online). Drunk driving, causing the death of a person while intoxicated, leaving the scene of an accident.

Lori killed a 19-year-old young man, who, for some reason, was out walking in the lane late at night. His older brother just came back from Iraq last Tuesday.

My ex-husband, and hers, bailed her out of jail yesterday afternoon. I heard they treated her pretty badly in jail. I don't imagine they're too kind to someone who was drunk and killed a person, and left the scene of an accident.

Even without Kelly asking me to, I would have been praying for Lori and for her family. I'm praying for the family of the young man who was killed as well. In one week a son returns safe from war and another one dies on a lonely stretch of highway.

Lori's life changed in a heartbeat. I have no idea how this will form the rest of her life, her mind, her heart, her faith, if any. Kelly said on the phone, "Dad told me he'd been praying. Can you believe it?? Dad? Praying?" Yes, I could believe it. Life stripped down in an instant to the one thing, one person, that we can hold on to in the midst of crushing pain. Lord, keep them all in the palm of your hand, give them comfort for their loss and strength for the trials ahead.

2 comments:

gerbmom said...

I am soooooooo sorry Anne. My prayers are with your "family" God can work through any circumstance, and as C.S. Lewis says "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." (The Problem of Pain)
I can't imagine the horror and fear and pain and guilt, all of it that Lori must certainly be dealing with!
I'm praying for you too.
Hugs,
Karen

Anne said...

Karen,

Thanks for that C. S. Lewis quote and for your prayers, though Lori and the victim's family need them most, of course. It's hard to turn off my brain from thinking about this, and how in a split second life can all change. And to think about those times in the past when I drove when I shouldn't have. "There but for the grace of God..." That sounds awful, though. As though God would give me grace and not someone else...