thankful.

Today began uneventfully, with us starting out towards the Oakland area to pick up our vehicle, which had been shipped from Hawaii (it was stolen from a parking lot 10 days before we left the island. Does not make for a smooth move, I know). Somewhere on I-580 N, an orange car to our right tried to change into the lane we were in and missed us by literally inches... my husband, who was driving, swerved to the left to avoid impact with this car. We were in the third lane of a very busy highway (I'd just remarked to my husband yesterday how I hated that freeway, from driving it that day) and we ended up all the way in the first lane. My husband struggled to steer us back in control. We almost hit the divider on our left but didn't; we ended up crossing over the second lane and back into the third... and the whole time, no other cars where near enough to have hit us or us them. All I could think of were my kids in the back. I was scared to death but couldn't react... the experience of being in an out-of-control fast moving vehicle is surreal and it happened quickly, yet felt like time had stopped, seconds stretched into eternity, a slow-motion hell. My husband finally regained control of our vehicle and I believe only seconds had passed since we almost had a potentially bad accident. Keep in mind, we were going a little over 65, and again, there were no other cars in either of the two lanes to our left -- thankfully, thankfully. I can't imagine what could have happened otherwise; or if the orange car had hit us. We were very lucky.

After that I checked to see if everyone was ok, and other than jolting my older son awake from his nap, everyone was fine physically. No one was hurt, but all of us were obviously quite shook up. I still am. I keep replaying the scene in my mind. I held my 3yo tight when we finally made it back home. I know this might sound a tad dramatic but I've never been more grateful to be alive. For my family to be alive. We had to drive both vehicles home so you can imagine how alert I was in the driver's seat; I had a knot in my stomach the entire 2+ hr return trip, and just wished us to be home already. I'm probably not going to drive for a few days.

I never saw what happened to the other driver in the orange car but my husband said he thought she had raced far ahead after the near-collision.

Funny, my kids mentioned weeks ago that black cars were bad luck; first our black Jeep was stolen in Hawaii. Then after dinner out one evening shortly before moving here, my husband retrieved our black rental car and discovered a cracked rear window, which proceeded to break into little pieces as we drove back to our hotel (it was raining, too). Then, today happened. We currently have a black car. I'm starting to wonder if the kids are onto something.

post-incident