To heck with humbug.

I received an email yesterday that spoke of "realizations". It's a good email, one I have seen before. It usually makes me think of friends who have passed away much too early for their years and my dad, when it states that to realize the value of a friend or family member, you must lose one. My dad is always in the front of my mind at this time of year. As much as he tried to "Bah-Hum-Bug" his way through the holidays, he made the holidays what they were. Since his death, there are those in my family who have had a difficult time embracing the holidays and appreciating them for what they're really about. For them, the joy isn't there. I hope they can learn to let go and seek that joy again. It's easy to focus on what we've lost and what's been done, but I've come to realize that when you spend so much time in the past, you miss and fail to revel in what's happening right now.

This will be a tough Christmas in my household for many reasons. Today is December 1st, we have just over a month to find a new place to live. Finding a new place means coming up with the security deposit and first month's rent and possibly having to fill a propane tank if the house has one and it is empty. We are behind on bills and the phone's ring has become as incessant as the mosquito's buzz on warm summer nights. The equivalent of bug repellent for bill collectors around here is to turn the phone's ringer off and the answering machine all the way down.

As I drove into Lakeport yesterday to fetch baby wipes and a loaf of bread to liven up our pasta dinner another of the realizations in that email hit me, almost literally. Adam stayed home to finish his homework and Taluelah and Avery came along for the ride. Avery sat in the front, which I normally do not let him do, and the Lue girl was buckled in her car seat with the newly adjusted straps to accommodate her ever expanding body. I was driving between 55 and 60 mph down Highway 29. I make a real effort not to speed, because on the list of "last things we need right now", getting a ticket rates pretty high. About midway to Lakeport, toward the end of the highway's pass through Kelseyville, I saw a black PT Cruiser up the road a way, off to my right, waiting to make a left turn across the two lanes of traffic. I saw her, but apparently she did not see me, even though I was clearly visible had she looked to her left.

I have a habit of saying, "don't do it," under my breath when I see a vehicle waiting to pull out, possibly in front of me. It's my way of willing them to stay where they are, letting us all continue on our merry ways. I guess I should have spoken my command much louder yesterday. The driver started to pull out to make her left turn in front of me, then thought better of it. My guess is she realized that the oncoming traffic, traffic that was opposing me, was "on-coming" too quickly and she would not make it. I still don't think she realized though, that she had pulled out in front of a vehicle, mine, that was traveling very near if not at, the posted speed which was still much too fast to stop on such short notice. Had she remained where she was I could have avoided hitting her by veering to the right but still stayed on my side of the road. There was no way to go behind her. Had I cut my wheel to the the right I would have ended up off the road smashed into a tree or flipped over. Now this is a guess again, but I'm fairly certain that she then decided to look to her left and see if any vehicles were coming her way. Um, hello!

Everything at this point happened so quickly that I can only assume our hearts both leaped to our throats and my life wasn't the only one flashing before a set of eyes in that odd intersection. In her attempt to correct her blunder, and avoid being plowed into by my Jeep, the driver pulled forward... a titch. Then she must have remembered the traffic that she was originally waiting on because she stopped, right there in front of me. I was already in the process of a skid, due to slamming on my worn down brakes on tires in desperate need of replacement, and veering left to avoid what could have been an awful wreck. When she pulled forward she left me no room to pass on the left, while still staying on my side of the road. Instead, I was forced to continue skidding left, through oncoming traffic. I ended up on the opposite side of the road, in the middle of a street that exited onto the highway. As I sat there, my backside facing the cars and trucks that whizzed by, Avery asked, "What's with all the traffic?"

The black PT Cruiser did not stop. The driver did not say sorry, did not wave apologetically. Instead, once the vehicles that she had stopped in front of me to avoid being hit by had passed, she finished making her left turn and continued on her way. A man in a large white truck who had nearly witnessed our "almost - coulda been" nasty car accident, slowed to a stop in the median and looked to make sure that we were okay. Outwardly we were. It took me a minute to collect myself and make the same turn the idiot in the black car had attempted from the opposite direction. I did not pull out in front of anyone. I was taught how to look both ways before I cross a street.

On the remainder of our trip to Lakeport we were passed by two CHP patrol cars and a fire truck with lights flashing and sirens wailing. Avery asked if I thought someone had called the police on "that" lady. I told him it was doubtful. Police don't generally respond to a call for something that almost happened. My insides were twisted in knots, my head throbbed and I felt like vomiting for quite awhile after the near collision. I explained to Avery why I do not let him sit in front when we go places. I can be a cautious driver, but that does not mean the rest of the driving world is. We got our baby wipes, we got our bread, we stopped to talk to a friend at the store and we left, Avery sitting in back without being told.

We discovered the reason for the police vehicles and fire truck on our way home. Our normal drive was rerouted due to a car accident. I don't know the details of the accident. I do not know if the accident involved a little black PT Cruiser or if the driver of a little black PT Cruiser witnessed the carnage that caused a detour on the highway. I can't help but think that whoever the driver of that Cruiser was had to have had a realization of her own. That could have been her, her passengers and a white Jeep filled with half of a family, just going out to get baby wipes and bread. For me, the detour brought back a line from the email I had read earlier that day... To realize the value of a second: Ask a person who has survived an accident (or barely avoided one).

All this writing of accidents and my dad and loss and being thankful and finding joy in the present reminds me of a dream I had a few weeks ago. It was the first dream I've had with my dad in it since he passed away 5 years ago. He was at a hospital in the ICU. He had been in an awful car accident on his way to work. My mother, my Aunt Jaime, some guy named Hawk, Myself and Taluelah were all in the waiting room. I thought I was going to have to leave Taluelah with Hawk so that I could go back and see my father. I figured this hospital was no different from any of the others I have had the misfortune of visiting - no children allowed in some areas.

There was an elderly gentleman at the receiving desk with skin the color of aged dark chocolate. His face radiated warmth and so I found the courage to ask if I could bring Taluelah back with me to see my dad, for her to see her Grandpa. He seemed surprised that I would ask permission and not already know that my daughter was welcome to pass by his desk and go with me into the back. In fact, he said that it was important that she did, that was why she was there. After my mother finished checking names of visitors off a list the kind old guard pointed to a huge clock that stood off in the distance but still appeared to be right there and made sure we knew how long we were allowed to stay. I remember, it wasn't for a very long period of time.

When we got into the ICU there were all the regular sights, smells and sounds... beeps, hummings, florescent lighting, antiseptic, machines, tubes, wires, doctors, nurses. But all of that faded away when I saw my dad standing there looking healthier than he did even years before he got sick. My mom said something to the effect of, "What have I told you? How many times did I say...?" And my dad just smiled and said, " In all the years I drove up and down that hill, something was bound to happen." I stood there confused. Wasn't my dad injured? Wasn't that why he was in the ICU? Why was he not in a hospital gown? Why wasn't he lying in a bed? And actually, hadn't my dad been dead for quite some time? Hadn't his body been reduced to ash? Why was he standing there looking pink and fresh and clean and fit and healthy and clothed? My dad must have noticed my puzzled face and guarded stance, because he turned his attention to me and Taluelah and smiled. And even though none of what I was experiencing made any sense to my mind, it made perfect sense to my heart. We were there so that my dad could finally meet his only granddaughter.

I've often lamented the fact that Taluelah will not grow to know my father. Her brothers have their memories. They remember my dad's scent, the deodorant he used, the gum he chewed, one of them even vaguely remembers the time Grandpa dressed as Santa, only to be found out when the picture was developed. Taluelah will have pictures and stories, but she will never know the joy he would have felt seeing her and her brothers grow. She can't possibly understand what she and he are missing out on. Maybe he'll come back and visit again in dreams, hers or mine, and my girl will be given a sense of who her Grandpa was. Stranger things have happened. I avoided plowing into a car while other vehicles avoided smashing into me and mine.

It would be easy to focus on all of the horrible things that could have resulted from my Jeep and a PT Cruiser meeting catastrophically, on the fact that Christmas gifts will be smaller and less this year because we are not only having to save what little money there is for the new place we must move to shortly, but because the incident yesterday proved what I've really known for awhile - we need new tires and brakes. Instead, I choose to thank the heavens and my angels that I was not down that road one second sooner last night and that I get to enjoy the smells of pine and fir and gingerbread and the twinkling of lights and the laughter of healthy children and the steam from my breath on these magical late fall evenings, that I am alive and that my dad's spirit hovers reminding me of just how joyous this season truly is.