A Bend in the Road.

We live on a hillside up above a busy road, a busy 4 lane road with a long stretch of highway and a big bend. It makes it attractive to those who like to speed.

We are also near some businesses, so we're used to hearing delivery trucks dumping loads at the local garden supply...we love living here, we call it the city cottage, 8 minutes from downtown but on 4 acres of land.

On cool nights we love to sleep with the upstairs windows open, sometimes the crickets are so loud, they overpower any vehicle noises.

Since we have lived here, 14 years now, we have heard the screeching of tires and the subsequent hard clunk of metal to alert us that an accident has happened. It always happens right at the bend, the bend where speed and alcohol fail to mix.

Usually it happens in the middle of the night, and I call 911...they know me by name now. It used to be a common occurrence when the bar down the street was open. It's been closed now for almost a year and the accidents have ceased. The only vehicles we hear at night are the occasional trucks or a speedster with a loud muffler.

Except for the one two nights ago.

There was a loud thump, like the sound of a dump truck load hitting the ground and then the shake of a trailer...my husband and I both heard it and fell back to sleep. Neither one of us even opened our eyes or looked at the clock, so when I awoke later, I had no idea how much time had passed....I awoke because of flashing swirling lights below...up I rose to the window.

Below on the street in total silence where five patrol cars blocking off the road and two EMS vehicles. It was an eerie quiet because there was no talking, no rushing, no sirens...just silence.

The EMS vehicle stood still, no dashing off to a hospital.

Whatever happened below was serious enough to require all these vehicles, but it was final in it's stillness. No one was walking away from this, no one was recovering, no one was alive.

After awhile I got back into bed and prayed and prayed for the soul of this person for whom all the lights are flashing.

They were there from a little after 1am until 6am....cleaning up. Long clean up.

We found out later it was a motorcycle accident, he failed to negotiate the bend, hit head on into a utility pole, then the rider and bike flew 15 feet and hit an empty trailer that was parked in the adjacent parking lot....that was the sound that woke us up, what we thought was a truck unloading, was this horrible last moment of someone's life. The rider was killed instantly, blunt force trauma, a severed leg and lacerated aorta...he completely bled out.

There was no warning of this accident, no screeching of brakes, or honking horn or loud voices, nothing...just the sound of the hit. There were barely skid marks to the pole which is now a fractured roadside memorial dressed with flowers and wreaths and a flag.

All weekend long, there has been a steady stream of motorcyclists slowly riding by, a strange survival observance, and the occasional stop to add to the memorial.

It was a local man who leaves behind a young daughter and grieving family.

I won't go into whether he wore a helmet or leathers, what does it matter at this point? I heard the police asking someone visiting the scene if they knew where he had been, had he been drinking? I suppose an autopsy will clarify that one.

I don't know why there wasn't the sound of tires squealing before he hit that pole, I don't know why for the first time, ever, we slept through an accident.

I don't know why it seems that the change of seasons seems to accelerate events.

I never get the answer to any of those things, and I'm all thought-out. I see it as a tender mercy, that God is in the details and the details are none of our business.

All I know for sure at this point, is that a little girl lost her dad, her life forever altered by a bend in the road.

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