Diary of Dan Frank

On Monday morning I left the lake after eating breakfast. As I was packing and starting to leave my Aunt told me to drive carefully and call when I arrived home. Too bad she didn't tell the other drivers on the road that day the same thing.

I was just getting to Baxter where I was going to stop for gas, when suddenly the car in front of mine stopped. I had left enough room between us for myself to stop, granted I was still pretty close to their car. When I came to a stop I looked in the rearview mirror and there was a car coming but they were a ways off.

2 Seconds later I looked back in my mirror and the same car was coming at me very quickly, suddenly they must have noticed I stopped and they slammed on their brakes. The car started swerving around as they were loosing control, still coming at me at what must have been 70 miles per hour!

I realized they were probably not going to stop, so I closed my eyes and braced for impact, thinking that this was it, this is how it all was going to end. Then faces of all the people I care about raced through my mind ending with my grandfather who died of cancer in 2002.

When I got to his face I slowly opened my eyes wondering what was taking so long...At this point I was completely prepared to join my grandfather, however when I looked back in the mirror the car was not there! So I looked back in the front of my car, and saw the car zooming passed me.

They must have regained control of the car and swerved into the next lane, with what I can only guess was 10 feet or less of space.

Needless to say I was happy I was able to get off the road and fill up with gas, as I was pretty shaken up at that point. The whole way home I kept thinking about what happened and what could have happened. I figured if I was lucky I would have been paralyzed, or died...Worst case, I would have been stuck in a vegetative state for the rest of my life...

On the drive home, I thought about all the people I would left behind, and their reactions to hearing the news that I had died, which got me to think about all the things I would never have gotten the chance to do or say.

Yesterday was my grandfather’s birthday, so like tradition dictates, I went over to the cemetery with blueberry pie, and some alcoholic beverages. Like last year I ate half of the pie, and left the other half for grandpa. I also gave him a few sips of my beer as I thought to myself I was 10 feet away from being laid down next to him.