Trip from Orem

So, this Thanksgiving our Knight relatives came to dinner at my parents' house, and it reminded me of a story from when Alison and I were dating. Here it goes.

After I returned from my mission, Alison and I started into some serious dating-ness. I would commute down to Provo (Alison was at BYU at the time), stay overnight at the Knights' house in Orem, and go back home. Diane gave me a key to the house one time when I was down there and told me to just let myself in. Well, Alison and I spent a long time together and I started toward Orem from BYU at about 4:30 am. At 5:00 I was at the Knights' house with a key that didn't work. I didn't want to wake them up to get in, and it was very cold (it was March, I think) so I didn't want to sleep in the car. I put some gas in the car and started for home as a gentle snow began to fall.

By the time I got to the freeway, that gentle snowfall was quickly turning into a blizzard. Luckily for me, I was tired enough that it didn't matter much. In fact, I think I slept most of the way home. I would wake up, notice I had changed lanes or was going 85 miles per hour, slow down and change back, all in a swirling storm with almost no visibility. Then I would drift back off into slumberland. I arrived at my parents' house at 6 am, went downstairs and dropped into bed. I'm positive that someone else was driving the car that morning, because I think my surviving was highly statistically significant.

I wrote Alison an email the next day and told her what had happened, expecting I guess that she would share my amusement at how I didn't die in a fiery wreck. Imagine my surprise when she was upset at my lack of foresight. I suppose she would have objected to her near-fiancee dying horribly.

There have been a couple other times in my life when I know I have been preserved. It makes me wonder for what. Most of those wondering times end with my being certain that whatever potential future I was saved for, I'm not anywhere close to meeting it.