Trauma

We got home about 15 minutes ago from our 3-day Virginia excursion. About an hour into the ride, while driving about 60 mph, we hit a bear. I guess he miscalculated... thinking that he could beat us across the road with his best sprint. Now I truly know the meaning of the phrase, "it happened so fast." Yet it somehow still felt like a lifetime between initial sighting and collision, and another eon between contact and the end of the whole ordeal. My mental picture of it all is far more vivid then I'd like it to be. And I'm looking forward to my brain not feeling the need to replay it for me every 3 minutes like an ESPN highlight. I see that bear (rolling) in my head more clearly than reality probably dictates (did I really see his face?). I guess the most important thing is that our entire family is fine. No major injuries. The van will need some work. And the most agonizing part is not knowing the fate of the bear (dead? fatally wounded? or defiant of the laws of both nature and physics), not to mention the travelers behind us that may have found him in the road.

I can't say that I've ever sat down to write a list of my "top ten most traumatic life experiences"... But if I did... I'm thinking that this would crack the top five pretty easily. Maybe I'll feel differently in the morning. Anyhow, I thank God for the safety of my family. And I hope that a few hours of sleep and the passage of time will help to shake the icky I think I killed something feeling that almost ate me alive as we drove away from it all.