Was it Fate?

I don't know how many of you out there are believers in fate, but to a certain degree I am. At the very least, there is someone out there (for me it's God) who watches over us....

Yesterday, my city was hit with some crazy Winter weather starting with freezing rain in the morning which turned to regular rain. Then, the temperature dropped really fast and we had flash freezing and whiteouts late in the morning and throughout the afternoon. Normally, I would not go out on a day like this, but I had to attend a meeting at 9:00am. It was a meeting of several agencies in the area that provide services to youths who have drug and alcohol addictions and my agency was invited to make a presentation about our program and to get some feedback about changes we will be making over the next few months. So, since we were guests, I did not want to back out. Before the meeting, I had to drop my daughter off at my mother in law's place and at that time, the roads were more slushy rather than anything else. I got to the meeting with no problems.

When the meeting ended, it must have been about 10:45 and the wind had picked up big time (you know, the kind of wind that when you try to talk literally takes your breath away it's so strong) and the roads were starting to freeze over. I made my way back home and at one point on the highway, there was so much blowing snow that I literally could not see one car length in front of me. It was scary as hell and I thought "Oh my God, what am I going to do?" I thought of pulling over but on the highway in those conditions, that could be even more dangerous than just moving ahead slowly. So I went on and luckily after about a minute, the snow drift cleared up. I made it the rest of the way home without incident, but things were slow and slippery.

Here's the next part of this story. When I got home, I ate some lunch and then turned on the tv. I flipped to a local news and weather station and I found out that there had been a massive accident on the highway involving several dozen cars right at the exit you would take to get to my place. At least a few people were killed and many were injured. That was bad enough in itself, but then they announced the time it occurred and it was literally five minutes after I had been on that stretch of highway coming home. That reality hit me like a ton of bricks and I realized how lucky I was that I hadn't stopped for gas or something like that because I could have easily been in the middle of the whole thing. It's moments like that where I think about how life is short and how it's so important to appreciate what I have. I really think someone was watching out for me....