October 1st is one of those dates that changed my life forever.

It was 4:00 am in the morning October 1, 2001 and I was taking Michelle to the Fort Wayne International Airport so she could fly to Miami for training to manage Rave Motion Pictures. I had driven her to the airport a few weeks before that so she could fly to Dallas for training, but I had taken a slightly different way. I thought I could save time and go through down town instead of winding my way along the outside.

I’ve always blamed myself for making that decision. I guess that’s natural when something tragic happens as a result of your actions. Countless times I have replayed that morning in my head thinking of ways that I could have altered the outcome. Perhaps if I had driven faster or slower, maybe if I didn’t make that yellow light and waited. I could have left sooner, later, taken a different route. No matter how I change things in my head, it cannot alter what happened.

Somewhere around 4:25 am as we drove down the center lane of Fairfield Ave in Fort Wayne, Shane Kraft of Auburn, IN ran a blinking red light traveling at excessive speeds and struck the passenger side of my 2001 Honda Civic EX with enough force to flip the car over and send it sliding up onto the curb and bend the frame (yes the FRAME) of the car by over an inch (I highlighted the impact with the red lines in the photo).

I don’t know why, perhaps it was the force of the impact, perhaps I just knew, but I turned to my right and saw GMC and two headlights (they were off) and then I heard shattering glass, and scraping, sparks. It felt let we slid for minutes, but it was only across to lanes and then over to the side.

I remember putting my hands up onto the ceiling of the car and telling Michelle to hang on, hang on. I just said that over and over and over again. Consciously I knew that I was upside down, that the car had filled over, but it had happened so fast my body hadn’t caught up with the idea yet. It felt like I was sitting upright in my seat. That I was on the left side of the car, that the curb was to my left and the road to the right. I remember undoing my seat belt and falling to the ceiling. There were shards of glass all over, I some how ended up arching myself back wards along the roof and managed to crawl out the rear passenger side window.

It was surreal, quite; my head lights shining ahead in the darkness, the clean underside of the car reflecting in the light of the street lamps, and my wheels just spinning. I remember the voice of Gandalf filling the dark morning (we had been listening to the Lord of the Rings being read). Most of it is a blur in my head, partially because my glasses and flown from my face, but strangely I don’t recall having a hard time seeing. Somehow I reached in from the passenger side, undid Michelle’s seat belt and laid her down on the side walk.

I remember the blood.

There was blood on her hands, face, on her sweater along her midsection. I didn’t know it, but I had blood all over me from climbing over glass and pulling Michelle out. Often times when I close my eyes I can see that image. I can feel the rage building inside of myself. When I saw the man responsible walk into my view I just lost it. I remember just yelling at him. I was just trembling. There were only two things that honestly kept me from killing him on the spot, the fact that Michelle was still breathing, and the two bystanders that were physically keeping me from killing him.

Somewhere in all of that the police, fire department and EMS showed up. They loaded Michelle on a stretcher and we got into the back of the ambulance. Somehow in all the wreckage the fire department managed to find my glasses (which were unbroken) and my cell phone (which still worked). The EMT asked me if I need medical attention, and I said I didn’t know, all I knew is that Michelle needed to get to the hospital.

It stops your heart to see someone you care very deeply about laying, covered in blood on a sidewalk and things only got worse in the ambulance. The EMT asked if she knew her name and she did, but only her first name. She could not remember the date, her address, phone number or social security number. To make matters worse for about 20 minutes she kept asking the same three questions:

“Bob, what are we doing here?”
“We were on our way to the airport.”

“Bob, where are we going?”
“You were going to fly to Miami”
“No I wasn’t”

“Bob, where is Danielle?”
“She’s back at the apartment, she’s safe.”

We had the conversation in the same order with the same words for 20 minutes. My heart sank every time she asked those questions.

By the time we reached the emergency room she had started to come around a bit more and show signs that mentally she was alright. The end result – 8 to 10 broken ribs, a lacerated liver, cuts, bruises, embedded glass (she still has some in her finger) and a partially collapsed lung. I ended up with a two foot long, 5 inch wide bruise across my chest. Michelle spent several days in the hospital, almost a month in recovery, and today still suffers on her right side and back from the impact.

Every October 1st, I drive down Fairfield Ave and think about that day. Every time I approach an intersection now, still three years later, I am certain that the person isn’t going to stop and they are going to slam into the car.

I am grateful to God every day that Michelle lived. While she will bare the pain of that accident for the rest of her life, she at least has a life left to live.

* * * * *

Ironically none of that is what I had even thought about writing yesterday when I began this blog in my head. I always start with a title and then write from there.

What I originally had planned on writing was about another change I made in my life. After 7 years as Bob “The Web Guy”, I’m stepping down from www.andrew-peterson.com.

It wasn’t an easy decision for me. I’ve been friends with Andrew since before I started doing his website. Next to Rich Mullins he’s my favorite Christian Artist. There is a kinship between the two of us and I was afraid that were the website went, there our friendship went.

Recently Andrew returned to being an independent artist (meaning he’s currently not on any record label) which means his primary connection to the outside world is his website. In order to keep in touch and keep the music machine pumping it’s going to need watchful eyes at the helm for a lot more hours each month and I’m going to have. For the foreseeable future I’m locked into 80 hours a week, Monday through Sunday until Kara graduates from IPFW. The hours I’m not working I like to spend with the Michelle & the boys, play some board games, and every once and awhile sleep. There is no way I have time for that.

So yesterday I made the call. Andrew knew it was coming. But what do you do? So my hope is we’ll still stay in touch as much as we have other the years sharing our friendship, love of movies, hard times, and the like. If nothing else, Andrew still has my boots from when I stayed at his house in 1999 and I need to get those back. Who knows what lies ahead in the future, but for now, I’m hanging up my hat and my last claim to fame. Rest in Piece Bob “the Web Guy”.