I wrote about one if the scariest accidents of my life in my memoir Float On. I’ll save the details for you to read about when it is released December 1st, but I’ll share a quote – “No one forced me to give him the injections. I did it to myself and it was an accident. I also knew it wasn’t some divine judgement…it was a shitty, scary accident, the kind that happen every day to everyone for no good reason.”

I obviously lived to write about it, but I am lucky. We probably have all had close calls in which we feel grateful that it didn’t end differently. Last night I had that same gut wrenching experience when my daughter Emma called and told me she had been in a car accident driving home from her boyfriend’s house. I was not prepared for the scene that my husband Robert and I found.

Emma is shaken up, but fine. The two people in the other car are fine. The cars are not fine; they can be replaced, our loved ones cannot. My husband Robert was in a car wreck over twenty-some years ago with his young daughter Lauren and his father Elmer. Robert was asleep while his father was driving and woke up in the hospital to find out that Elmer had died in the crash. These awful things happen. Grateful doesn’t begin to express that something worse didn’t happen last night.

We are often immediately tempted to assign blame – whose fault is it? Last night, Emma didn’t do anything illegal in her driving (for which I’m happy) but when I really think about it, who cares? The driver who made a bad decision in front of her didn’t want this to happen. Who hasn’t made a driving error or bad choice at some point in their lives? Assigning the fault to him may help with insurance but it doesn’t explain why shitty, scary accidents happen for no good reason. They just do.

On this day I let the relief and love for my family flow. I wish the same release of affection for you.

Love, Molly