Metal Meredith

Seeing Things In a New Light

Phil and Vivienne and I set out this morning at 930am to make a trip to IKEA. As always, I was delighted to go, Vivienne not so much and Phil was just being sweet to me. We started up 95N and were pleasantly surprised that there wasn’t any traffic.

About 30 minutes into the trip, a car passed us going really fast. I noticed the license plate, the erratic driving and the fact that the car was spending much of its time on another car’s bumper or halfway on the shoulder kicking little pebbles up onto my windshield.

About 2 minutes later, we saw a big puff of white smoke, a car slide to the right, then all the way back to the left, smack into the concrete column of an overpass, flip and immediately catch on fire. It was that same car. Everyone on 95 stopped cold, us included. Many people jumped out of their cars and ran to the vehicle. There was a huge cloud of black smoke, two men were running around the overturned vehicle and yelling for fire extinguishers. They found two small ones. I have never felt more helpless. I was sure that someone would come out, someone would pull someone out or anyone would come quickly and put the fire out.

After a good 2 or 3 minutes, Phil and I decided to leave. We couldn’t do anything else and I was worried that we were being part of the problem by blocking traffic behind us. We climbed back into the car, calmed Vivienne down who was just mad that she wasn’t allowed out of the car, and continued up 95 to IKEA. The radio wasn’t turned back on, Phil and I didn’t say a whole lot, we were just quiet for about 30 minutes.

At IKEA, we found out that the countertops we came to order were discontinued. I had just called Wednesday and confirmed that they were still available. I was told to come in and order them. So we drove an hour and a half. This made my whole kitchen plan come to a screeching halt. Phil and I took some deep breaths and went to get some lunch.

At the table, I stopped being upset and recapped my day thus far. I looked at Phil and said “Let’s just figure something else out. We are here. We are not dead on 95. We just don’t get the kitchen we originally wanted.” There is nothing like death to put your life in perspective.

On our way home, at 330pm, there was still a 7 mile back up on 95. The news that afternoon reported a crash on 95 which killed 3 people and another was in critical condition at a local hospital. They still have not identified the people in the car. I called the State police and reported what I saw just to be sure they had all the information they could use.

I am still in awe of the split second that took 3 lives today, lives that I witnessed the end of. I didn’t want to be one of those people who didn’t stop and help. But once I stopped, I knew there was nothing I could do. On the way up 95 after that, it seemed that everyone in every car was silent as a plume of smoke continued to rise over the horizon in the rear view mirror. I grabbed Phil’s hand, gave it a big squeeze, and looked in the mirror at Vivienne smiling, eating cookies.

Love,
Meredith, Phil and Vivienne (eating cookies, still)