An abrupt end to our camping season
Well....I should be sitting by a campfire enjoying some nice fall weather right now. We were going to try and take advantage of a 3-day weekend and get one last trip in for the 2013 season. Unfortunat...
Forum Discussion
crickeydog,
If I could just make a little comment, meant totally in good faith, with a smile on my face and a friendly hand on your shoulder:
I know we all react differently to these things because we are all very different people.
It is easy to lash out either verbally, physically or on the keyboard to somebody who has slighted us in some way, whether it be big or small.
I detest drunk drivers, big time, especially after the twenty thousand dollar hit my truck took on October 18, 2012. Yeah I like a drink myself - most of us do from time to time. If I have one sip of a beer, I WILL NOT get behind the wheel, under any circumstances. period.
There are others that feel differently and think nothing will happen. They will be careful. They will avoid busy traffic. etc etc etc. But! They are impaired, make poor decisions and the end result is what the OP posted here or in my case the thread I posted nearly a year ago.
I understand wanting to make them pay pay pay for their indiscretions. But sometimes we need to look beyond that and realize that everyone has a life to live and is in a different place in living. There are many lessons to learn from things like this.
I lost my father and stepmother in a grisly head on crash that killed them both instantly. Not their fault. My first reaction was rage, big time rage, wanting to "get even". But after I calmed, I had to teach myself to accept that I cannot bring them back by any amount of retaliation to the woman who crossed the center line and hit my dads car head on. This was May 20, 1994. I learned a lot from that lesson. I forgave the woman. It was hard but I got on my knees one evening.
The main thing with this incident here is that nobody was hurt. Trucks can be replaced. Human lives cannot.
I wasn't so lucky. I have lost a lot of work time, a lot of money and I am still tangled up with lawyers and insurance and blah blah blah. I am still going to physio and chiro. I hurt. I hurt a lot sometimes but it is not up to me to decide what I should be paid back or compensated. That will come out one day in the future.
At the scene of the crash, the first thing I did was walk over to the remains of a Mazda Protege and help the drunk get out of the wreckage. I made sure he was ok, nothing broken etc. I phoned him 3 times in the following weeks to make sure he was ok. He is a human being, like you and I. Yeah he chose to drive drunk and could have killed someone, no question about it. He has to pay back 20 grand to our provincial insurance company. He has to pay back the 2800 or whatever it was for my rental truck. He lost his car, as his insurance is invalid because of being drunk.
Safe to say he has a lot of trouble on his plate for driving while impaired. I sincerely hope he has learned something of value.
But I got even with him. I got even big time!
I got on my knees and forgave him. I wish him no harm. He has enough already.
I have learned to look at the positive side of life, and be very thankful for what I have and to be very thankful that I can still hitch up my TT and drag it into a lake somewhere to enjoy the thing I love most in my leisure activity.
Life is too short to live in any kind of harsh thoughts towards others.
I choose to live my life appreciating what I can still do. And what I have that many others don't.
I hope you take this in the way it is intended, in friendship, in love of a fellow man. It is not intended any other way.
Life is good.
If I could just make a little comment, meant totally in good faith, with a smile on my face and a friendly hand on your shoulder:
I know we all react differently to these things because we are all very different people.
It is easy to lash out either verbally, physically or on the keyboard to somebody who has slighted us in some way, whether it be big or small.
I detest drunk drivers, big time, especially after the twenty thousand dollar hit my truck took on October 18, 2012. Yeah I like a drink myself - most of us do from time to time. If I have one sip of a beer, I WILL NOT get behind the wheel, under any circumstances. period.
There are others that feel differently and think nothing will happen. They will be careful. They will avoid busy traffic. etc etc etc. But! They are impaired, make poor decisions and the end result is what the OP posted here or in my case the thread I posted nearly a year ago.
I understand wanting to make them pay pay pay for their indiscretions. But sometimes we need to look beyond that and realize that everyone has a life to live and is in a different place in living. There are many lessons to learn from things like this.
I lost my father and stepmother in a grisly head on crash that killed them both instantly. Not their fault. My first reaction was rage, big time rage, wanting to "get even". But after I calmed, I had to teach myself to accept that I cannot bring them back by any amount of retaliation to the woman who crossed the center line and hit my dads car head on. This was May 20, 1994. I learned a lot from that lesson. I forgave the woman. It was hard but I got on my knees one evening.
The main thing with this incident here is that nobody was hurt. Trucks can be replaced. Human lives cannot.
I wasn't so lucky. I have lost a lot of work time, a lot of money and I am still tangled up with lawyers and insurance and blah blah blah. I am still going to physio and chiro. I hurt. I hurt a lot sometimes but it is not up to me to decide what I should be paid back or compensated. That will come out one day in the future.
At the scene of the crash, the first thing I did was walk over to the remains of a Mazda Protege and help the drunk get out of the wreckage. I made sure he was ok, nothing broken etc. I phoned him 3 times in the following weeks to make sure he was ok. He is a human being, like you and I. Yeah he chose to drive drunk and could have killed someone, no question about it. He has to pay back 20 grand to our provincial insurance company. He has to pay back the 2800 or whatever it was for my rental truck. He lost his car, as his insurance is invalid because of being drunk.
Safe to say he has a lot of trouble on his plate for driving while impaired. I sincerely hope he has learned something of value.
But I got even with him. I got even big time!
I got on my knees and forgave him. I wish him no harm. He has enough already.
I have learned to look at the positive side of life, and be very thankful for what I have and to be very thankful that I can still hitch up my TT and drag it into a lake somewhere to enjoy the thing I love most in my leisure activity.
Life is too short to live in any kind of harsh thoughts towards others.
I choose to live my life appreciating what I can still do. And what I have that many others don't.
I hope you take this in the way it is intended, in friendship, in love of a fellow man. It is not intended any other way.
Life is good.
