Yeah. This is all true. And it’s going to come across as clinical because all these years later I’m still shocky about it.
I was just reading something elsewhere about gun violence and came across the fact that a Parkland survivor had been at MSU, so now this young person has survived TWO mass shootings. There was further discussion of the fact that none of us are safe — that if we simply go on about our lives, sooner or later we are going to cross paths with this.
And all of a sudden I realized that I had. I remembered. I realized. Had I really not understood what had happened? I think I did, but then I just shelved it and went on about the business of living.
Ok, so.
I don’t remember which year it was. I know where I was living, though — in Rockville, MD. And I was working for the Feds. And I was going to be doing some international travel, which I had not done since leaving the private sector. And I had dying parents. So, like any good daughter, I decided that flying to and from Japan meant I should update my will.
This didn’t bother me or upset me or prey on my mind. I’d been around back when a major corporation lost almost all of its executive tier because they were all on the same flight that went down with no survivors… www.forbes.com/…
I knew what could happen. So I called a lawyer and dug out my previous copy and took a day off from work.
The lawyer’s offices were close to where I’d attended college, and it had been long, long years since I was in that area. I looked forward to seeing how much I remembered, how much had changed. It was a pretty quiet drive until I was about ten minutes from her office. Two lane road, semi commercial, double yellow line. Nice day, warm. I was listening to some music or other — car had excellent audio. And a car full of young men, young, laughing, gesticulating, was in the oncoming lane. Red, I remember, and all the windows down.
Huh. They were laughing at me? Sure seemed to be. Pointing. Waving? No… not exactly friendly laughte —
BOOM
— my car rocked so hard I almost lost control of it. Jesus, did I blow a tire! Rolled along, found a parking lot, pulled in. No, nothing wrong with the tires. Walked around the car looking for a dent. NOTHING. Nothing. Walked around it again. Looked at the roof. Looked at the grille. Not a damn thing. Not a damn thing. Windows all fine, all of the body surface fine. Nothing on the roof. Nothing dripping under the car thank God. Pop the hood. Nope, everything fine.
What the hell happened?
Got into the car, pulled back out, made my appointment a couple minutes late, apologized, said I’d thought I might have hit something but couldn’t find any evidence of damage, but I’d stopped to check.
We went over everything, I made some tweaks due to my parents’ conditions [and the fact that I was back in the US], she gave me an appointment to come collect the revised will and finalize it, and I hopped in the car and drove back home.
On the way, I decided to get a few groceries. Stuck ‘em on the passenger side. Tootled on home.
Took more than one trip to get all the stuff inside. It was the last trip — the one for the canned goods, and thank God I’d put the milk and [I think] ice cream away — when I saw it.
The one place I had not looked. My outside mirror housings. The sun was hitting just so…
The one on the drivers’ side had a nice, neat, little round hole. A brand new nice neat little round hole.
I folded up like a collapsing tent and sat on the curb with my head between my knees for about ten minutes.
At the angle I was seeing, it looked like they’d aimed for my heart.
Yeah, it’s true. I left out a few details because I didn’t think they mattered in the moment. And I could not for the life of me understand how a blow that rocked my car that way could come from a round that … entered the mirror housing but … didn’t shatter the mirror … and didn’t even affect the controls for it. I could still adjust that mirror using the interior switch. I was dumbfounded.
A few months later I was at a social thing and met a guy who did ballistics as part of his job. Asked him about it, about how such a thing was possible. He came out and looked at the hole and was seriously impressed — by my car. Offered to take the mirror apart and fish out the slug for a souvenir, but I said no, leave it, who knows, the mirror might stop working if it’s removed, it could be in just the exact place to not interfere… and I’m not sure I want to see the thing that was supposed to kill me.
This must have been in 1997. I put a piece of black electrical tape over the hole and kept driving the car. She finally blew a head gasket in 2006 and I gave up on her, which felt like losing my right arm.
Damn car saved my life.