A Car Crash

The gift of prevision is an ability innate within every human being. But what is meant by prevision?

At the age of 8, I walked to my daycare worker’s car in the Latter Days Saint's (Mormon) Church parking lot in Fremont, California. Church Camp, held over spring break, just ended that day. Dressed in a lavender, cotton, floral dress with a pretty lace collar, white patent leather shoes, and a little white sweater sat my closest and blondest friend, Caroline—an early bird. She was waiting for everyone to arrive after the program ended. I was the second person out of the building. I wore a little pink summer dress, which came down to my knees, and adorned sandy blond/light brown hair. My grandmother sewed my dress out of fabric with little ladybugs all over it, later revealing another mess.

When I walked up to the car, I saw one white, patent leather shoe sticking outside the passenger car door, firmly placed upon the ground. I climbed over Caroline to share the front passenger seat with her and asked what she was doing with her foot on the ground. “I’m keeping the car from rolling and crashing,” she said. She sat with me with her foot outside the car door, pressed firmly on the ground while singing hymnals.

A little while later, after everyone in our group piled into the car, including my brother, William, who shared the front passenger seat with Caroline and me, a terrible crash happened. All nine occupants of our childcare worker’s green 70's Pinto were sent to the hospital for examination and treatment. The five children in the backseat were unharmed, though terrified at the sight of blood.

Three of us, who shared the front passenger seat, were more seriously injured. The injuries resulted as follows: Caroline had a scraped elbow and a bump on her head from sliding under the dashboard; my brother, William, had a minor concussion from hitting the knob of the glove compartment with his head; while I suffered from abrasions from breaking the windshield with my body, a concussion, and a shoulder injury. My Angels must have been there because I landed safely back in my wedge of the car seat after the windshield completely shattered; blood dripped from my head onto my ladybug dress, covering it with bloodstains.

The accident happened in front of the daycare worker’s home, where my brother and I stayed the afternoons during the school year, awaiting our father's arrival for an evening pick-up. Not this day, however, when my father arrived ahead of the ambulance because my brother bravely stepped out of the mangled wreck and walked himself straight to the kitchen to place the phone call. “Dad,” he said into the rotary dial phone mounted to the wall, “My sister is hurt.” Dad drove us to the hospital. The ambulance was too slow for his safety over us.

The childcare worker who drove us was sent to surgery for her knee and hip, as she had been dangerously pinned inside of the car during the accident, resulting in serious injuries.

I stayed home-alone for two weeks from the second grade, as did my brother from the 4th grade. Handmade cards from classmates were walked over to us from the school we both attended. My grandparents drove across town to check on us.

My grandmother hand-washed my ladybug dress with some Palmolive dish detergent in my parent's kitchen sink. She re-examined the dress through her bi-focal lenses, held to her face with a string tied to either earpiece, to hang the glasses around her neck when she wasn't using them to see with. When handing me the newly washed ladybug dress, she said in a reserved voice, "With all these red spots, I can't tell if I've gotten all the bloodstains out." I took it from her, reluctant to wear it again. "That's alright," I said, smiling to show her everything was okay, "I'm sure it's just ladybugs."

What I didn’t recover from, however, was how Caroline instinctively knew, before the accident, that we were about to crash and placed her foot on the ground to prevent it from happening. I think she was inclined to reproach that her insight wasn’t used to keep everyone safe that day.

Carline knew. She kept her foot on the ground when she said, "…to keep the car from crashing."

“Get your foot in the car,” the childcare worker demanded of Caroline, “and close the car door.” The car door creaked as Caroline pulled hard to shut it.

That afternoon in church, we’d been reminded to listen to the Holy Spirit—a source of guidance in times of need.

One Sunday meeting, a woman stood before the Congregation with a large, black microphone in her hands, held tightly to her face, as she breathed into it. Wearing a long floral skirt and a matching, buttoned blouse with puffy sleeves; medium length, blond, banged, hot-ironed curled hair; and wide oval glasses covering her cheeks; she pushed her glasses with her index finger onto the bridge of her nose, as she spoke of God’s witness in her life.

Her story was about a treacherous drive through the 22-mile, wildfire-threatened passage of the 505 north of the San Francisco Bay Area. My legs flung back and forth under the church bench I shared with about forty others as I listened to her testimony. I was still about eight years old.

Vacaville was always the “pit-stop” between my parent’s home in Fremont, in the San Francisco Bay Area, and my aunt and uncle’s home in Chico, in Northern California, where I spent most of my summer vacations as a little girl, and when we took the 505, too.

Anyway, this woman giving her testimony told of her drive along the 505 and how the wind was pulling at her steering wheel, threatening to drive her off the road while she struggled to keep the car in her lane. To soothe herself of fears, while gripping the steering wheel, she sang out loud, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine…” and saw her way home to safety; she felt the Holy Spirit move within her.

Several months had passed since the accident. My father made a hard-ground rule that we were not to get inside a car that had reached capacity: every passenger had to have their own seatbelt.

Later that year, I stood in the parking lot after church, watching my childcare worker drive away in a woodie station wagon with one too many children inside.