Let me tell you what happened on the road to God.
I was a hitchhiker on the side of a dark highway, looking for the road to God, not even knowing if there was such a road — the desperation of the bereaved.
The truck was an oil tanker. My shadowy figure must have spooked the driver. He swerved violently, delivering me a glancing blow and sending me spinning across the shoulder of the road. The truck slammed into the concrete pilon of an overpass. The tanker exploded. It was an inferno. The driver was incinerated.
First responders described the scene as “sheer hell.”
I was taken to a local hospital, and from my hospital bed I watched the horror replayed on the eleven o’clock news.
A GROTESQUE TRAGEDY
The truck driver was a young man with a wife and three kids in Memphis. I am an old man who was selfishly searching for an unknown and probably nonexistent entity just so I could possibly be with my wife again.
The tragedy that befell the young truck driver and his family was so grotesquely unfair and unjust that I vowed never to venture on that road again.
I will be haunted by the guilt of his death until I die, but there is nothing I can do to change the tragedy of that night. All I can do now is give up my selfish, and let’s face it, pointless search for God.
Now I stay inside the hallowed confines of my bungalow on County Road 9. Hallowed because it contains the memory of my wife, the photos on the mantel, her dresses still hanging in the closet, her writing materials undisturbed on the desk, all of her belongings still intact. Nothing has been changed or removed.
This is where I will live out my days. This is my life. And this is my death.