The Crash

Today is the 34th anniversary of the "bus crash." I


I was attending Hinds Junior College at the time and we boarded a bus very early on a Saturday morning to attend a junior college choral festival at Jones County Junior College. 


Little did we know that the driver of the bus we boarded had been up late shuttling a sports team from a game and had gotten little sleep. We were just outside Laurel, MS, when the bus jerked.  Sitting two seats behind the driver, I looked up to see that he had nodded off. Our choir director reached up and tried to take the wheel, but the driver jerked awake, overcorrected, and sent us over an embankment. 


Miraculously, all survived. Several of us had fractured backs (me included) and there was girl with severe facial lacerations. Others had various bumps, fractures, and bruises, but we were alive. 


I have been in varying degrees of pain since then. And I have never been quite the same. I am the most nervous passenger on the planet. I never quite regained the strength in my arms that I once had. I still don't really like to ride in buses. 


As I walked up to take communion this morning in church, I thought about the "might have beens". And I was thankful once again.