Bad things happen to nice people

Last night one persons bad judgment impacted several others lives. I was one of 7 people hit by a drunk driver. He hit one car knocking it into another and fled that scene. A few minutes later he crashed into me blowing me into another car. He fled our accident too but thankfully the police were on his trail. We were all stopped or stopping in traffic on the freeway so he wasn't able to get far and was pulled over about a half mile up the road. One officer stayed in our area taking everyone's information while his partner got ahead of the suspect on surface streets then hit the freeway and cut him off. I didn't even see him as he came out of nowhere and hit me with such force it blew my back window out as well as my radio out of the dash board. I had Nick with me trying to get him to his soccer game.

When the officer was almost done with me and the woman I was pushed into his partner radioed him to say he had the suspect and wanted to know if we could ID him. Officer Hoesly inspected my car and found green paint embedded into my silver car. The man in question was driving a green pickup with a big bash or two. They told me I could go but I insisted on taking my car up to his truck so they could do a side by side comparison. Officer Hoesly had me follow him up and park in front of the pickup. It was definitely a match. He was arrested for two counts of hit and run, reckless driving, driving under the influence and several other things.

When we have a trauma in our lives we instantly try to protect our loved ones, worry about our possessions and how they are damaged and generally fretting on how we are going to fix what has happened to us. I was certainly in that mode with my son and my car. I don't have full coverage on my car so I was feeling panic at loss of my car.

While I was sitting in my car waiting for the police to finish with pictures and questions I looked in my rear view mirror and saw a teenage boy sitting in the passenger seat of the pickup. Suddenly all my problems seemed less in comparison to a young man having witnessed all he had. As he watched his dad get handcuffed and put in the back of the police car my heart hurt for him. I wanted to go to him and tell him it would be okay. Would it though? Nick sombered up from his anger and trying to protect his mom when we saw the boy.

Yeah, I'm inconvenienced by the loss of my car and living out as far as I do. It may not be straightened out for a long time but I'm okay and so is Nick.

It's been a hell of a year in Marta's World but I'm still standing.