I recently had the chance to cross the item “ride 104 miles in a tow truck with my entire family” off of my bucket list.  Are you jealous?  Oh, it’s not on your bucket list?  Truthfully, I can think of few things that sound less enticing.  Maybe “fly to Australia with three kids age four and under.”  Another thing that is definitely not on my list!
But, alas, this was exactly the predicament my husband and I found ourselves in about a month ago.  We had spent a wonderful long weekend visiting my in-laws at their lake house four hours north of our home.  The kids were deliciously tired, the kind that only living outside and skipping naps for three days can create.  We left around 10:00 a.m., figuring we’d drive halfway home, eat lunch, and then the two littlest ones could nap the last leg.  Ah, the best laid plans…
We made it almost exactly halfway before I attempted to pass a car and a semi in one move.  (I may or may not have issues with patience, particularly while driving.)  I made it past the car and was about halfway past the semi when the RPM needle on our van suddenly dropped, and I could no longer accelerate.  Ever calm in a crisis, I yelled to my husband something along the lines of, “HONEY!  The van is FREAKING OUT!  I don’t know what to do!  I can’t get around the semi!  WE’RE GOING TO DIE!”
Of course we made it around the semi and managed to pull over at a nearby auto shop.  They were unable to fit us in, but said our van definitely should not be driven the remaining 104 miles to our house.  My husband told me we would have to call AAA to be towed, and I honestly almost fainted.  The idea of riding in a TOW TRUCK with our kids, ages four, three, and almost one, for almost two hours left me immediately panicked.  What if someone had to use the bathroom?  What if we couldn’t secure their car seats properly? (I’m a big car seat safety nut.)  What if the baby screamed the whole way?  And what would we do with our beloved dog, who surely could not fit in the cab with us?  And how would WE all fit, for that matter?
I begged my husband to figure out a different way to get us home.  Maybe a friend would go to our house and pick up our other car and come get us.  Maybe we could find a hotel for two days until the mechanic could fit us in.  Maybe we could find a bus.  Maybe we could hitchhike.  (Kidding with that last one, of course.)  But surely, there MUST be a better way!  My ever-rational husband pointed out that a free tow from AAA indeed WAS our best bet, and that we would just have to make it work.  The kids had been behaving amazingly, playing in the parking lot while my husband and the mechanic checked out the van, but I envisioned immediate meltdowns once we were all secure in the tow truck with a complete stranger.
But then, suddenly resigned to the fact that this was going to happen whether I panicked or not, I began praying for the tow truck driver.  I asked God to please send us someone who had kids and loads of patience.  I asked God to let the kids sleep for at least part of the way and to be pleasant for the rest of the trip.
About an hour later we were all squished into an extended cab tow truck with everyone but my husband buckled in legally and our beloved pooch riding in the van on the flatbed behind us.   We were no more than a mile down the road before our driver, Dave, reached down and retrieved a giant bucket of candy left over from a town parade his tow truck company had been in.  The kids were, of course, immediately smitten!
Within a half an hour, the kids ALL fell asleep and continued sleeping until the last 20 minutes of the ride.  All of my panicking had been in vain.  And I was immediately struck with how many times MOST of my pre-panicking is in vain.  Though not generally a “worrier,” there are times that the overwhelming task of being a mother gets the best of me.  “What if my kids ________________?”,  “What if my kids don’t _________?”  But at the end of the day, it’s truly all about grace.  I am, of course, required to do everything I can in my power to raise compassionate, generous, and responsible children, but so much of it is out of my control.  It was a wonderful reminder to pray for my kids, and to pray for the grace to be a good parent.
When Dave dropped us off on our street, I debated running into the house to get him a bag of cookies or banana bread from our freezer but instead thanked him profusely, much to my husband’s amusement who reminded me, “Honey, this is his job.” I told him we would say a rosary for him and his family, and  soon he was honking his horn while the kids waved good-bye from the lawn.
I continued to think about the experience over the next few days, marveling at God’s goodness that we had not only survived what had the potential to be a disaster, but had also hopefully witnessed to the joys of having children.  The other lesson I learned?  It is never a good idea to pass a car and a semi at the same time in a mini-van, no matter how slow said vehicles might be traveling.