I was driving to a doctor’s appointment in my Ford F-150 pickup yesterday, mentally slogging through my usual mundane worries and stresses. The street from the freeway to the doctor’s office in Fort Worth took me past a parking garage with a sidewalk between the garage and the street. As I drove in the right lane, a man, obviously drunk, walked toward the street from the parking garage. I watched him and expected him to stop at the curb until the traffic went by. Instead he stepped off the curb and right in front of my truck.
I was going about 40 mph. If I had not been looking directly at him, I would have hit him. If I would have hit him, I very likely would have killed him. As it was, I hit my brakes and swerved to the left. By the time I stopped, he was right outside my passenger window. He looked up, startled and muttered an apology.
What’s interesting is that my first reaction was not concern for him. I was glad that I would not have to live with the knowledge that I had killed a man.
The life that I had saved was my own.
The Great Adventure 