A few years ago (actually, about 15 years ago, but it feels like a few), my late husband was in the hospital, having just had a hip replacement. This was after many years of medical crises and major surgeries, and I was pretty shell-shocked and not tracking well.
We lived way out in the country about an hour from the hospital. In Texas, it’s not like some other parts of the country where when you drive out of Major City, you go through an almost continuous series of villages, towns, subdivisions, settlements, etc., until you get to the Next Town. Here, you leave the city and drive through (in my case) 40 miles of farm/ranchland with no gas stations, few houses (and those way off the road), not even road lights, just nothing.
I left him one night to go home about 10 pm. I got in my car, a Toyota Camry (1990, I think), and when I turned on the key, all of the panel lights came on and stayed on. It vaguely registered on me that this meant something, but I was so completely worn out physically, mentally, and emotionally that I didn’t try to figure out WHAT it meant. I just started the long drive home.
Did I mention that it was raining?
I drive through the city with no incident and then crossed the last highway with any lights on it and headed out into the darkness. The Outer Darkness. You’ve heard of it?
I’m barreling along at 60 MPH in the rain, panel lights on, hungry, sleepy, anxious about my husband, and suddenly all of the panel lights go out AND my headlights, too. But do I pull over and stop?
No.
I’m thinking, “Well, there’s not a lot of traffic, and I’m only about 10 miles from home… maybe I can make it.”
And part of my brain is saying, “This is really stupid and dangerous-- going 60 with no headlights in the rain. You should stop doing this.”
This little debate went on for a while, then finally it dawned on me that stopping would be good. On the stretch between the city and my house, there were only two exits, so I had a ways to go before I got to one of them. I didn’t want to just pull onto the shoulder. THAT seemed dangerous. :smack: I pulled onto the off ramp and picked up my cell phone. Battery dead. I also had my husband’s cell phone. Battery dead. I had the charging cables, but of course, the car’s battery was dead, too.
Eventually a car came down the ramp and I used the guy’s cell phone to call a neighbor. He came in his Mazda Miata, which was not capable of towing my car. (Triple-A would have taken HOURS to get to me.) We drove to my house, got my husband’s pickup, came back to my car, and towed it to the front yard of the guy whose cell phone I had borrowed, which s was a couple of miles off the interstate. I had it stuck in my mind that I couldn’t just leave the car there on the exit ramp, when actually, I could have, and it would have been easier for the tow truck to find the next day than finding this guy’s house.
That was a crazy time. That car had a lot of problems and this particular neighbor had rescued me a couple of times before when that car broke down. Ditched the car soon after.
When I called my husband the next day and told him the story, it made him feel even worse that all of this had happened and he wasn’t there and couldn’t be there to take care of me. That was a crazy and difficult time.
