Miracles

Friday night I came home from a fabulous dinner with friends to discover a small miracle had occurred at our home that night (and nobody even witnessed it). Our neighbor who lives three houses down across the street drives a semi truck. He was rearranging the vehicles in his driveway and parked his semi on the street. Somehow the brake was not put on or the vehicle was left in neutral or something, but it started to roll. It gained momentum and rolled down the street and hit one of our large maple trees. Mom and dad heard a loud thump, but did not go to investigate. A minute later, the doorbell was ringing. The next door neighbor also heard the thump but he went to investigate and thought my parents would want to know that they now had a semi truck attached to one of their trees.

The miracle of the story is this…we have 10 people living at mom and dad’s house. With those 10 people come 6 drivers and 5 cars. Three of those 5 cars are generally parked on the street in front of the house. This miracle happened on a Friday night when two of the vehicles were not home (which is actually a little unusual). I had worked all day and normally go home completely exhausted and crash on the couch. Friday, I had gone out with my friends from nursing school (the only day that actually worked for all 5 of us to get together this month). Elizabeth had also gone out. Because two cars were gone, only one was parked on the street. The one that was there was parked a little further back than normal….why? Who knows, but, as a result, it sustained little or no damage. The semi wasn’t so lucky. It had to be towed away. The "puddle" on the ground is actually antifreeze from the semi's radiator which was damaged when it crashed into the tree.

Our poor tree. The truck jolted it good, but the tree stood its ground.

See how close the truck came to hitting Hyrum's car? We are so lucky! If my car would have been there, or even Elizabeth's, it would have likely been pulled up more towards the driveway and would have been hit.

This is Elizabeth's Car. Had one of us been home, we likely would have parked here. Had both of us been home, one of us would have definately been parked here - directly in the path of the semi. The green house in the background is where our neighbor with the semi truck lives. The trail of antifreeze leads to his house. He was able to back the truck back to his house after the accident. Serisously, we were so lucky nobody or nothing else was hurt that night.

The tree likely saved other things from being damaged as well. If it had not been there the truck likely would have run right over the top of Hyrum's car and who knows where else it would have gone.