Something Big & Scary

That Tuesday morning, I was a woman on a mission. I had thirty minutes to get my daughter to her homeschool co-op class. In a building exactly twenty-seven minutes away.

I had a three-minute window for error and delay.

I knew something was off as soon as I got up to a good enough speed to hear the whomp and tick sound coming from a tire. The possibilities of what could be making that sound tromped through my mind: a rock, a nail, a random ax head in the road I somehow failed to avoid.

I got about a quarter mile down the road and pulled into a large church parking lot. It was my closest, safest turn-around. Sure enough, there was Something Big and Scary in my tire.

Much to my relief, it was not a random ax head. Much to my chagrin, it was something.

The head of the thing was a half-inch in diameter, and at least a quarter inch tall. My imagination filled in the remaining length and width of the unseen portion. In my mind it was iceberg huge.

In a span of about thirty seconds, I ran through at least half a dozen scenarios of the calamity that could result from the Something Big and Scary in my left rear tire.

I called my husband, who happened to be working from home that day.  “I’m coming back. I need to take your car.”

“Okay,” he said.

“There’s Something Big and Scary in my tire,” I said.

He must have heard how I capitalized Something and Big and Scary in my voice because he said “okay” again real quick-like.

By the time I rolled back into our driveway, my man had his car running with the driver’s side door open for me and the right passenger door open for our daughter to climb into her booster seat. He aided us with the things we carry for a morning at co-op, received my key fob in exchange, and away we went. Safe and secure, barring any random ax heads or otherwise Big and Scary items on our way.

After co-op, I still had to deal with the Something Big and Scary in my tire. Slowly, slowly I drove my car to our local tire place.

“What can I help you with today?” Bill is the man behind the counter. He is perpetually cheerful. A good choice for a front man. It’s obvious he has great joy in helping people.

I held up my phone to show him the picture I’d taken of my tire. 

“I have something Big and Scary in my tire.”

He raised his eyebrows. I bet he was thinking in capital letters, too. He took my car straightaway to an open bay. Thirty minutes later, he emerged.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he said and tapped on the keys of his computer keyboard.

It was my turn to raise my eyebrows. I ran the scenario where all four of my tires and somehow half the undercarriage of my car would need to be replaced.

As I approached the counter, Bill made a few more keyboard taps, pulled a piece of paper off the printer, and slid the paper toward me. He placed a screw, point side up, on the paper. While the head was insanely large, the screw itself was less than a half-inch long. It had barely punctured the tread.

“It’s the darndest thing,” Bill said with a smile. “The things we think might be big, end up being small after all.”

Tears pricked my eyes. I paid the $41.72 Flat Repair 50-Series Invoice, thanked Bill from the depths of my heart, and pocketed the screw.

The formerly Something Big and Scary screw. 

I needed a reminder. A tangible token of God’s provision in the midst of my need.

Three months and twelve days before that screw in my tire, our little family received the news of a Something Big and Scary diagnosis. My husband had stage three Follicular Lymphoma--a cancer of the lymphatic system.

The future we thought we could see, and had been planning for, was suddenly clouded by the unseen. The unknown. 

Follicular Lymphoma has no known cause. This type of cancer is considered a chronic condition, slow growing unless it transforms and becomes aggressive for no known reason. Follicular Lymphoma also has no known cure. Sure, people have been known to die of old age before they die from this kind of cancer. But most people are diagnosed with follicular lymphoma in their seventh decade.

My husband was fifty-five. 

In the three months after the diagnosis, even the sweetest moments carried a sense of finality. I watched my husband and our daughter playing in the snow and wondered if this would be the last winter frolic for the two of them. I watched them in the sports shop, comparing fishing lures, and wondered if the cancer would transform before it got warm enough to fish. 

Our family already knew that time together is precious in a general sense. We’d experienced enough joy and loss to understand that, but until this diagnosis, the reality of mortality was no longer in the distance.

The End was very real and very present and much closer than it had seemed to be before.

There is often a blessing in the Big and Scary Somethings that puncture our treads.  For me, the blessing comes in the form of an opportunity for imaginative restraint.  Subduing my imagination takes a deliberate act of my will. Instead of running scenarios, I am learning to focus on savoring those moments that sear my heart in ways they have never done before.

Sometimes I meet with success. Sometimes I don’t. 

Still, the weight of mortality is actually a gift. I can no longer roll on down the road without a care in the world. 

This is not a bad thing.

Above my desk is a quote from journalist George Ade: “Travel slowly, stop often.”  

On my lips is a prayer of gratitude for this and every day, no matter what may come.

Gratitude, even for the Big and Scary Somethings.

Taped to an index card is the screw Bill pulled out of my tire. I tacked the index card to the wall of my writing room.

It’s a good reminder.

I’m still a woman on a mission.

I still have a road to travel – sometimes slowly, sometimes fast, sometimes coming to a stop.

Lord willing, I’ll savor the journey in faith, all the way to the Big and Wonderful End.