The bizarre series of events that saved my life
Plus: Your latest walking/cleaning/sitting around doing nothing audio companion.
Last week I was invited to do a reading and signing at Lincoln’s Francie and Finch Bookshop. I told a story that happened to me as a little girl. One that saved my life, shaped it, and has become one of my favorite metaphors. It’s an excerpt from my latest book, I’m Not Ready for This, available wherever books are sold. You can also get signed copy, here.
I’ve never been ready for anything.
I’ve tried to recall a time when I’ve walked into any situation prepared academically, emotionally, spiritually, or physically. Nothing comes to mind. Adult decisions, marriage, conflict, parenting, crow’s feet, large pores, skinny jeans, hosting a dinner party . . . you name it, I’m not ready for it.
I’ve never, not once, been ready to go sleeveless. Or for my monthly period to arrive, even though my iWatch gives me several warnings. I wasn’t ready for my daughter to start kindergarten, and don’t even get me started on that one time I appeared on national TV in a blazer two sizes too small because I thought I’d lose 20 pounds before the shoot. Oh Lord, I ain’t never ready!
But somehow, miraculously, God finds a way to push me forward. Feels super rude, to be honest, as I kick and scream, weep, and breathe into a paper sack. But the more I’m pushed, the more I’ve had to rely on God for a miracle. A reminder that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to while simultaneously recognizing I can’t accomplish anything at all.
Every huge moment of my life, something has given me a push. In fact, I probably wouldn’t be alive today if I wasn’t, literally, violently pushed. It’s a sliver of time in my life I think of often. A reminder, or a metaphor maybe. There is something pushing us forward all the time, and it’s wise to let it happen.
I don’t remember many of the details, other than the shock of it and the chaos swirling around me. The screaming and running, the confusion and fear. I can still see my mom running toward me. I was surprised to see her; I usually walked home with my friends. Her eyes looked afraid. It was just one tiny second, but I thought maybe she was running to hug me. But she pushed me, hard, and I flew back several feet. Skidding across the gravel, my elbows skinned raw. The picture I had painted at school, the one I held in my hands, caught the air like a paper sack, flipping and twirling above me. I heard screams, saw people running. My classmate’s mother, Jody, scooped me into her arms and carried me away. I don’t remember anything else.
But my mom remembers it vividly. And thirty-four years later, she says, she’s still in shock it ever happened.
I was in the first grade. We lived in the country, outside of a small Nebraska town. I attended Stull School, a tiny three-room schoolhouse. It’s hard to imagine tiny school- houses still standing today. A few years ago, I drove by my beautiful old home on the hill. I was disappointed to see Stull converted into a day care center. The playground was now gated, and the building looked shabby and sad. Cheap, beat-up toys were strewn across what looked like a prison yard. The same stretch of grass where I used to run free with my friends.
The day started just like any other day. Mom helped me get dressed, comb my hair, and brush my teeth. I had a little breakfast, and when it was time, she helped me tie my shoes and wrap my backpack across my shoulders. I would walk to school with my friend and her older sister, so I waited at the front door for them to appear into view. After a few moments, I saw them outside my house on the gravel road, pausing to see if I’d join them. I yelled goodbye and ran out to meet them; Mom waved me off at the front door.
But what made this day peculiar is what happened later in the afternoon. On a typical school day, I would walk home with those same friends, and about a half hour before- hand, Mom would prepare a little snack for when I walked through the door. But on this day, while she began to rustle up ingredients, she was struck with an immediate sense of urgency. It wasn’t a gentle, inner knowing. Not a little nudge, or whisper in her ear. It was an inner bullhorn: I was in danger, and she needed to run.
If you were to ask her what it felt like, the only word she can conjure is robotic. As if something, or someone, had taken over her body, and she was left to observe, con- fused and concerned. As someone else grabbed her keys. As someone else started the car. As someone else pushed the accelerator, down, then up, then down the gravel road to the tiny three-room schoolhouse where children trickled from its doors.
She spotted me immediately, holding the picture I painted for her that day, making my way home. Mom felt pushed from her car, not given the chance to shut off the engine or close the driver’s-side door. She ran toward me, across the street, as a large dump truck gunned it in reverse.
That’s when I saw her. I lit up, until I saw her eyes. She was afraid, but why? Then she pushed me. I remember the pain and a feeling of betrayal. Then a woman scooped me into her arms and ran toward the school so I wouldn’t witness the truck crash into my mom, knock her to the ground, and roll over her entire body.
That particular road had been padded with fresh gravel just a week before, and my mom sunk into it, deep. Then came more screams, the arms waving at the man to stop his truck. Others ran to her to see how badly she was hurt. She tells me that bruises immediately appeared, dark and blue, from her neck down to her ankles. Without a single broken bone.
When I hear this story I like to think of Acts 12:7, when Peter is asleep in a jail cell and an angel hits him on the side. Startled, Peter wakes up and sees his shackles are open. “Quick!” the angel says. “Get up!”
Peter thought he was in a dream, but he couldn’t help but do what he was told.
Last week, as my mom and I revisited the story over the phone, she said, “You know what the driver did after he realized he ran over me? He blamed me! Said I was stupid for standing behind a moving truck.”
“Typical,” I said, rolling my eyes. The nerve of that idiot. For a moment so extraordinary, a miracle beyond human understanding, man somehow remains predictable. Distracted. So self-involved.
But mercifully, we’re still granted those rare magical moments when something, or someone, gives us a little push. Of course, we’re never ready. But maybe that’s the point.
Doing My Best with My Mind!
Gratitude. I know, BARF. Haven’t we done this already to ad nauseam? Oprah covered that two decades ago. Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins, all the motivational speakers. Whatever, it’s been done.
But I read something today that said “If your baby fell asleep in a warm bed, in a safe home, with a full tummy, you’ve won the lottery of life.”
Something about that made me emotional. I know how important gratitude is, I teach it my girls every 15 minutes. But I don’t often feel it and own it in a deep meaningful way as often as I’d like. I am still selfish and needy and rarely satisfied. I want so many things ALL the time. I want to more success, more money, more opportunities, more cute fall clothes. But my God, how lucky am I to have warm, safe beds to tuck my daughters into each night? The feeling of deep gratitude has been with me all day and I’ve been praying I don’t let it slide away from me so easily by tomorrow.
Doing My Best with My Body:
Here’s our Episode Eight, in the I’m Not Ready for This walk with me series, “I’m Not Ready for this Job!”
Here’s how I’m nourishing my spirit:
I’ve been slowly reading and digesting the book of John in the Bible - NIV. It’s reading like I’ve never read it before.
And, of course, the best way to support me is to not only buy my books, but to get a copy for your friends and family to help support my mission to spread laughter. Get a personalized, signed copy now.
Have we met? I’m Anna Lind Thomas, a humor writer out of Omaha, Nebraska. I’m listed as one of USA Today’s top ten funniest women writers, and author of the best selling book We’ll Laugh About This (Someday) and my latest - I’m Not Ready for This. Once you read them, text me (number’s in the back and I respond!). Don’t forget to say hi on Facebook and Instagram.