Unfortunately, I realized there was no way I could keep doing everything I was doing at the church. Small group, college band, rehearsals … on top of lesson plans and grading and all the other minutiae that come with teaching, it was just too much. I reluctantly dropped the college band, which gave me two more free nights a week. There was no way I was going to drop my small group, though; those women were my family. Our weekly meetings were a boon to me and well worth the exhaustion I felt Tuesday mornings.

Before I knew it the holidays were upon us again. The Uptons invited me to their Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, which I accepted gratefully. The students were more squirrelly than usual, and I was fighting for their attention every minute of the day. I was grateful for the short week before Thanksgiving, but even with a long weekend it seemed I was back in the classroom before I’d had a chance to catch my breath.

December was hectic. The church was gearing up for its Christmas Eve services and wanted to incorporate some singers and musicians from the Sunday night service. I was asked, and against my better judgment I accepted, even though it meant a lot of rehearsals for the next three weeks on top of the end-of-the-quarter madness.

That winter the rains began early. Usually they didn’t start in earnest until mid-January, or so they told me, but the second week of December it was like living in a rain cloud. I’ve always enjoyed rain, so the weather itself didn’t bother me. What did bother me was the traffic. Driving in inclement weather was nothing new to me, being from Illinois, but Californians seemed to forget from year to year just how hard it is to drive on roads that haven’t seen rain in ten months, and as a result there were accidents galore closing down the freeways every night. Thankfully I didn’t often have to use them, but as fate (if I believed in such things anymore) would have it, the I-5 was the fastest route to small group.

Monday night, two weeks before Christmas break, it was 10:30—late for me because we’d celebrated Joy’s birthday, and I hadn’t wanted to skip out early—and thankfully there weren’t a lot of cars on the road. It was pouring; I had my wipers on high speed, and even that wasn’t helping all that much. I hadn’t been feeling well that past weekend; I’d been battling a cold and not sleeping well, and I was stressed out about finishing everything before vacation, and how I’d fit it all in around rehearsals. In a nutshell, I was preoccupied and sleepy, and the rotten roads weren’t helping either.