Things Happen in Threes...

The number three has always mystified humans because it represents the beginning, middle and end of something. How many times have we said “things come in threes,” even when we don’t quite understand what that means?

According to ancient wisdom:

Messages or events that come in threes are worth noticing. Whenever anything is mentioned three times it is a witness to us that these things are of utmost importance.

And if that doesn’t give you the willies…

I had a recent experience with the number three, involving vehicles and people, things that don’t often mix well.

One

Our son Dan was home on leave recently, always a pleasant surprise. He and I were doing errands one day – the never-ending kind—when I decided to backtrack and go to a local grocery store to pick up a prescription. While in the store, we ran into “Uncle Frank,” a man who had helped operate a local pre-school which both of my boys had attended. If there were a contest, Frank could very possibly win the nicest man alive award – which is why we were happy to chat with him for awhile. He and Dan exchanged military stories while we inched forward in the pharmacy line.

Later, backing out of my parking stall and before I could put my car in drive, I noticed that a blue car was backing up directly into the path of my car door. I hit the horn long and hard, but the car kept coming. He tapped my door with his bumper, which probably didn’t cause too much damage. I kept beeping, though, when he hit the gas and backed into my car again – and again – and again, each time with more force. By this time I was freaking out. Dan jumped out of our car, ran over to the man’s car and started yelling and waving at the driver who finally realized he had hit us and pulled back into his slot. We exchanged insurance information and went on our way, a little shook up, with a good-sized dent in the door.

Two

Two days later Dan and I were starting out on a drive to visit his brother in Ohio, when a bunch of warning lights flashed on my car. We pulled over and called a garage. After waiting over an hour, we loaded the car onto the back of the tow truck, and then had a pleasant conversation with the tow truck driver as he drove us to a dealer about what were the best buffets around (both the driver and Dan were well-versed on the subject.) So instead of wending our way to OH, we had to get someone to give us a ride home.

Three

The third car related incident was potentially the most serious. Larry and I were leaving for an out of town football game, waiting to make a left turn on the highway we can see from our house. I was on the cell phone in the passenger seat, talking, when I heard Larry say something about “that guy just missed us.” A pickup truck coming from behind us had to swerve around our car into the opposing lanes of traffic to miss rear-ending us. It was very, very close. There was also a car in the right lane next to us at the same time. We decided that if we had been hit, we would have ricocheted like a ping pong ball between several vehicles on the road, and missing the football game would have been the least of our problems.

We were fortunate that these three incidents worked out OK. No one was hurt in our fender bender; the other driver’s insurance company took care of the damages, and my car repair was under warranty. But it does give you pause. A second either way on the near accident on the highway would have made the difference in a close call and a serious accident.

It seems that sometimes life shows us a string of cautions, like a disturbance in the Force if you will; a shimmer cautioning us that we should be paying more attention, that something serious is about to happen. It has become such a cliché these days to live for the moment, but it is all that we have. And even that can be taken away in an instant, whether we are paying attention or not.

By Teresa K. Flatley

www.tflatley.com