Master Reset

18 years ago, my life went through a "master reset."

April 19, 1995 was an odd day.

I had scheduled a vacation day. Usually I look forward to vacation days because I can not wait to be off and doing my own thing. Something about vacation days in the middle of the week make me feel like I'm being bad.

But I went to work anyway. I remember it was a coworker's birthday and I was carrying my famous (well at least famous at my office) bacon wrap hors devors.  Cooking them that morning had run me behind and I asked my (now ex) if he would carry Julz to daycare. 

I should have known something was up when he agreed without complaint.

When my car died as I was getting off 459, all I could think about was being late for work. Calls to my home went unanswered.

 I got permission from the owner of the interstate Chevron that I frequented at that exit, to leave my car there until I could figure out what needed to be done. He was a really sweet man that I had developed a friendly rapport over the past several years, stopping nearly every morning for a soda, or gas, or my weakness, a Zero bar.  He told me to leave it as long as I needed.

I had one of the guys from the shop, who was a known mechanic on the side, to come out and pick me up.  He took a look under the hood. There was sugar on the top of my engine.

Mystified, we went to work.

My coworkers were surprised to see me. I was supposed to be off. But all were glad that I had brought the bacon wraps. I kept trying to reach (my ex) but no one had seen him. Julz had made it to daycare, but that was all I could confirm.

When news reports began circulating that the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in downtown Oklahoma City, I was distracted by the drama. My whole department began trying to reach the rep working Oklahoma City that day.  This was a pre-cell phone time and only a few of our manager's had "beepers."  We knew that Bob, the regular rep was on vacation and his manager, Hank, was running his route that day.  Tensions were high.

Then the call came that would change my life.

My grandparents called to tell me that (my ex) was at home. "Everything is gone." my grandmother had said "Gone."

After dropping Julz off at daycare, he had returned home and packed up his belongings so that they would be spared. Then he took a sledge hammer to everything left in the house.  Then he preceded to cut up all of my clothes and decorate my house with their remains, like he was throwing confetti at a party.  This went on, uninterupted for a few hours. The shotgun blast, killing our German Shepard, Be'be, alerted my grandparents that something was amiss.

I look back at that day, now 18 years later, and marvel at the things God had put into place. The Grace of God saved my life that day.

Truly a "Master" reset