Years ago, our family moved from Indiana to New Hampshire. My husband had already started a new job there, so Mama came from Ohio to help me with the move, the long drive, and my three daughters, 6, 8, and 10.
The house was clean, the moving van had left and it was getting late, so we packed three children, Mama, me, a couple of suitcases, a cairn terrier, a Styrofoam cooler with sandwiches and milk, and a howling cat into our small Toyota station wagon. Even with the back seat folded down, we were all crammed in pretty tight.
I should probably mention something important. It was the dead of winter and snowing heavily as we headed east on the interstate towards New Hampshire.
Two hours down the road, it was snowing so hard I couldn’t see the lines on the road and, at times, the road either. My wipers struggled to keep up with the heavy snow that kept caking on the windshield. Driving slowly, I was relieved to get behind an eighteen wheeler and I focused solely on his red tail lights to guide me.
When he turned off at one of the exits, Mama and I decided we had no business being on the road in that kind of weather either. It was really late and at that point, snowing so hard the wipers had all but given up.
Without the semi’s red taillights, I couldn't see anything anymore. The only clue I had that I was still on the road came from the glow of our headlights as they lit up parts of the mile markers that weren’t caked with snow to the right of the road.
A sign for the next exit promised several motels and I drove to the front door of the first one I came to, relieved to be off the road. I was about to turn off the car when Carrie, my oldest, said. "Mommy, we can’t stay here. There's a fire coming. This motel will burn down and we'll all die."
Mama and I looked at each other, then at the well-lit snow-covered building, part of a famous motel chain. We assured her several times that all was well —there was no fire, but there was no placating her. She was adamant.
Mama leaned over and whispered, "Pick your battles, honey", and I agreed. It was late and we were all tired. It just wasn't worth the aggravation of further arguing. I drove further down the street to the next motel where we got a room for what was left of the night.
In the morning, we were greeted by a sunny day. The snow had stopped and it blanketed everything. It was beautiful, just like a Norman Rockwell painting.
After a continental breakfast, compliments of the motel, Mama and I re-crammed ourselves, the three girls, suitcases, cooler, the cairn terrier and the howling cat back into the Toyota to resume our long drive to New Hampshire.
As we passed the first motel from the night before, we were stunned. Sometime during the night, the motel had caught fire and burned to the ground.
Mothers, listen to your children …
Namaste.
Poet/Writer/Author of 5 books.
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Goosebumps reading that!
Lovely story. I can say from 'personal' experiences that its a 'curse' and not really a gift to 'see' or 'feel' things before they happen. Damn thing, what ever it is, as 'its' never given me the name of tomorrows 2.30 winner at the Kentucky derby ;-) Great reading CJ. Heck.