The Unforeseen

I was impatient, had lingered too late over coffee with a friend. My errand list was long, my time short, but what else is new? Hurry, hurry, hurry. Just 15 miles over the speed limit; no problem. Clear day, light traffic, dry pavement.

My left eye saw a scene that was not quite right. My brain, slower to react, also registered something amiss. A line of cars haphazardly pulled off the road, anxious people kneeling, a bike on the ground. I turned my head for a quick look. A woman, her legs swung out of an open car door, was doubled over in the driver’s seat, her head buried in her hands. The only visible thing protruding from the circle of the concerned nearby was a pair of feet.

Then I was past, whipping on down the road with speeding traffic, craning my neck toward the side mirror to get a last look. Horrified comprehension followed.

What if I’d been on time? It could have been me who hit that bicyclist. I often glance aside to change the music tape, reach for sunglasses, take a sip of water. I sometimes go too fast, distracted by my spinning thoughts, and drift onto the shoulder. A moment’s lapse in judgment and strangers’ lives collide, changed forever.

Just how important is it to get to the bank this morning? Photocopy those reports to make the 2 p.m., FedEx shipment? Pick up the dry cleaning that’s been there for a month? My list of things to do seems inconsequential now. I notice we’ve all braked, two dozen drivers instinctively chastened, sharing a collective attitude adjustment in less time than it takes to listen to a Golden Oldie.

Pioneering aviator Charles Lindbergh’s youngest child, Reeve, writes in her new memoir that her late father was a meticulous planner, but also constantly warned his family about “the unforeseen.” It was the unforeseen that he could not predict as he attempted to become the first person to fly the Atlantic. It was the unforeseen that killed his infant son when a kidnapper stole him in the night.

My father, also a pilot, raised us on a checklist that provided for every known contingency because he believed that “the hardest thing to do in this life is survive.” The years have proved him right. Danger is everywhere, particularly in the careless, the everyday, the norm: the ball bouncing in the street with the child right behind it; the window-washer’s bucket teetering off scaffolding 40 stories above, the boat motor that quits in the middle of the lake as the storm comes up.

Nothing could be more ordinary than a bicyclist out for a leisurely ride on a perfect morning. Then comes “the unforeseen.”

An ambulance approaches, its lights flashing and siren screaming. We all know where it’s going. En masse, we pull off the road, as much out of respect for its mission that now holds personal meaning for us as for the law that requires it.

I resume my chores but cross two off the list. I am reminded that I am my own worst enemy. When will I learn to stop overreaching? To enjoy the scenery instead of speeding past it? To slow down and stay alert for the unforeseen? Certainly, today. Hopefully, for as long as the image of a stricken woman with her face buried in her hands and a pair of unmoving feet on the pavement sticks with me.