He Sent Me Round the Bend

When I returned to La Sierra (a suburb of Riverside, California) in 2002, I found myself surprised. Never in a million years did I think I’d move back to this old stomping ground again. I had graduated from then Loma Linda University (now La Sierra University), two decades earlier. It wasn’t in my plan at all to return.


Three years after graduating from there, I first returned with my then husband, Eddie. 

He wanted to go back to school for a masters in mathematics. So we moved into a very tiny married students’ housing unit that was a matchbook-sized house of only 20’ by 20’. 

He worked at the universities farm, primarily fixing and maintaining farm machinery, but occasionally plowing fields, moving irrigation pipes or whatever else needed to be done.


My son, Nick, was born while we lived in that tiny little cracker box of a house and one of his very first words (other than mama and dada) was “outside!” 

He apparently found the tiny house as claustrophobic as I did.
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When I returned to La Sierra in 2002, I could not help but be struck by the changes in those two decades. 

Now, rather than with a husband and a son, I came alone (unless you could count my black cat, Spookie.) The nearly square mile of farm, poultry and dairy that I’d loved so much had been sold off and turned into extravagant, four- and five-bedroom houses.


Pierce Street, the long, straight shot of a road from the freeway to the campus had been chopped up, rerouted and replaced with the sensually curvaceous planned community road of Riverwalk Parkway. 

It now veered off the original Pierce Street path then south of what had been the farm office, then meandered through the now flattened place that had once been the mound on which the commercial dairy stood.


Then the parkway curved to the right through what used to be the stables where I’d worked my freshman year training horses to help pay for my college tuition.


An amazingly un-Riverside-like, man-made river with landscaping and scenic walking paths ran along the east side or Riverwalk Parkway. 





Beyond that, sprawled across the expanse that was once fields of corn and alfalfa, now stood four- and five-bedroom houses, squeezed in with no room to breathe.


And at that time, the west side of the curving road (which now is filled with apartments and shops and a wide, landscaped lawn and entryway to the university) was nothing but piled up dirt and tumbleweeds
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Though I lived in La Sierra, I worked at a chiropractic office forty-five minutes away – provided there was no traffic. And to make it worse, the office hours were 2:00 to 10:00 pm., though we often didn’t finish up until almost 11:00 p.m. This would get me home just before midnight.


And on Friday evenings my boss often wanted me to join her for “dinner” at Denny’s down the street where we would have “breakfast” at 11:30 at night.


Well, one Thursday night I made the way home, dead tired from being on my feet all evening leaning over people’s sore muscles and aches and pains. At the end of the evening I needed someone to work me over too!


By the time I got off the 91 freeway, I could barely keep my eyes open. The road curved to the right, and then to the left, and then to the right again…


There on the deserted west side of the road, wrapped around a light pole that didn’t work yet, was someone’s car. 

I came suddenly awake and considered doubling back, but the paramedics and police cars were pulling up to the scene.


The next day on the way to work, I saw black skid marks sliding right up to the base of that concrete streetlight pole where they stopped suddenly amid a sprinkling of broken glass and bits of metal. 

My heart ached for whoever had been driving that car, as I knew they could not have survived that crash.


That night (it was a Friday), I told my boss I couldn’t go out to Denny’s with her. I felt the need to just get home. 

I drove down the deserted freeways and finally exited at Pierce. I turned left onto Riverwalk, then curved to the right, and then to the left, and then to the right again…


And there at the spot where the newly-crashed car had been this time the night before, stood a lone figure in the darkness, illuminated briefly by my headlights as I curved by, then only by the candle at the base of the darkened street lamp.


I drove to the end of the divided section of road and felt compelled to go back and talk to the man standing alone on that deserted stretch of road, at midnight. My better sense told me that just didn’t sound sane.


But I felt compelled, so back I went.


I made a U-turn and doubled back. But realized it was just not safe to park on that curve in the road, in the blackness of midnight on a deserted parkway. 

So I continued on down the road to the first turn-out – a little stump of a drive that would eventually become the continuation of Raley Drive. But now it was just a very stumpy dead end, blocked off with reflector caution signs and mounds of dirt.


I sat for a moment contemplating the thought of abandoning the safety of my car and walking down that dark, deserted road to go confront a strange man I didn’t know. 

But I felt compelled to go, and so I pocketed my keys and set off.
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“Excuse me,” I said, approaching the man from the darkness. He didn’t hear me at first, consumed in his thoughts.


“Excuse me…?"


He looked up at me, uncomprehending in his anguish.


“Um…. I was just driving by and saw you here all alone and thought you might need company.”


He looked at me blankly, so I just stood next to him in silence for several minutes, looking at the candle burning on the sidewalk.


Now he seemed to at least register that someone had spoken to him. “Uhh... Who are you?”


“My name is Liz. I just saw you here alone and thought you needed a friend.”


“Oh… wow! Uh… thank you….”


“Did you know them?” I asked quietly, looking down at the candle, flowers and rosary at the makeshift memorial at the base of the concrete pillar.


“He was my kid brother…”


“I’m so sorry,” I said, touching his forearm.


“Why did you stop?” he asked.


“I saw you and just didn’t think you should be here all alone in your sorrow.”


“Thanks. Thanks, man,” he said, then began to shake slightly in the chilly night air as he began to cry silently.


“Come here,” I said, pulling this stranger into my arms.


And without resisting, he fell into my arms and let go. As the tears began to flow, he put his arms around me and his face into my shoulder and neck and cried, and then wailed, while I patted him on the back.


When he’d cried himself out, he began to talk. To tell me he hadn't been able to cry, to make it real. To tell me about his kid brother who’d saved for years to buy the "cherried-out” car of his dreams. And when asked if he could drive the car just once, the kid brother said, “Over my dead body.”


“And now he’s dead!” he wailed. "And it’s my fault because I was mad at him for not letting me take it for a drive. I was going to buy a car too, but spent all the money I’d saved to landscape my mother’s yard so that she could finally have a nice house after raising all of us kids. And I was jealous of him and that car…”


And he cried some more; this time not ashamed of his tears or needing to hide them.


For the next forty-five minutes I listened and he talked. About his siblings, about how one would plan a funeral, about the family photo he’d just convinced his family to take last month and how it was the last photo ever taken of his brother.


“I am sure your photo will be her most prized possession for the rest of her life,” I said quietly.


Eventually he’d cried and talked himself out. “I better be getting home,” he said turning to me. “My wife will get worried.”


Then he turned to me and hugged me for several seconds, reluctant to let go.


“Thanks,” he said. “I don’t know what made you come back, but I can never thank you enough.”


“Just be there for your mother,” I said. She’s going to need your strength and support in the months to come.”


“I will,” he said. Then he hugged me again and we went our separate ways.


When I got back to my car in that dark, secluded turn out, I got in and began to shake all over. From the cold, from the realization of the dangerous thing I'd done, from the emotional build-up of taking on his grief, and from the thankfulness that my then eighteen-year-old, newly-driving son was home safe and sound. I pulled out my phone and called him, waking him up.


He couldn’t understand why I was so dramatically emotional when I said I just called to tell him how much I loved him and to tell him to be careful when he drove anywhere.


“Uh….okay…?” he said, not understanding.


“Promise me!” I said.


“I promise,” he replied.


And I drove home thanking God that he’d impressed me to turn back and reach out to that lone figure in the darkness.




Early one summer evening not too long afterward, I decided I needed to drive down to the gas station near the freeway and buy a bag of ice.


“There’s ice in the freezer!” my sister argued.


“I know. But I just need store-bought ice,” I answered.


“It’s just ice! It will melt the same,” she said, feeling argumentative in the extreme heat of the day.


But down the curving road to the gas station a mile or so away, I went in search of a bag of ice. 

On the way back, I curved to the right, and then to the left, and then to the right again. 

And at the stoplight I turned left onto Sierra Vista – a short, winding road through open spaces – and headed toward the church and home.


Only whoever engineered this curved stretch of road had done a poor job. The road was banked all wrong. When the road zigged, you zagged because it banked to the left instead of the right.


As I came round the bend, I came upon two cars parked one on either side of the road with people standing in the middle of the street. 

I pulled over and then noticed a downed motorcycle. 

Someone squatted by the man on the ground while another paced back and forth in the street shouting and waving his arms, obviously distraught. A third stood doing nothing.


I quickly ran over to the man on the ground, bringing a car blanket with me. The others were talking about picking him up onto the sidewalk, but I told them to leave him where he was. I sat on the curb where this man lay in the gutter and held his hand and talked to him, though he didn’t seem to register that I was there except to squeeze my hand.


Within a minute the paramedics arrived and pushed me out of the way, taking over. The others in their two cars quickly drove away, but I turned to the distraught brother, still pacing in the middle of the street and shouting, wailing and waving his arms.


I brought him a blanket from the back of my car to wrap around his bare shoulders as the evening chill had begun to swirl into the shadows behind the mountain where we stood. 

He was wailing and kept trying to pull away from me to go back to his brother, but I insisted he could not do anything to help and that the paramedics were taking care of him.


I put my arm around him as we sat on the front bumper of the fire engine that had arrived on the scene.  I wanted to keep him talking about his brother who lay in the gutter on the bend in the road.


“I told him to wear his helmet!” he shouted angrily. “I told him to slow down! But he didn’t listen!”


I saw the paramedics pull a sheet over the face of his brother there in the gutter. So I kept him talking, asking him where he lived (which was just up the hill from me), and about his family - anything. I didn’t want him to see the paramedics declaring his brother dead.



I told him I’d often heard him and his brother driving up our hill. (Though I didn’t tell him the loud roaring had irritated me.) Then the firemen and policemen came over to ask him questions for their reports and telling me to leave. No onlookers were allowed.


Reluctantly, I returned to my car, slowly drove past the fire trucks and police car, and the sheet-covered body of that distraught man’s brother. I drove the last quarter of a mile home in shock.


Two young lives stamped out on the road around the bend. Each the result of going too fast. Such senseless loss with so many broken hearts left behind. It has taken years of driving past those two spots without being overcome with emotion.


I contemplate those two tragedies and the lessons to be learned.


So often we are guilty of hurrying through life. We are in such a hurry to get to the destination that we miss out on the beauty of the moment.  We don't that we are not promised more than just this moment.


We barrel down the bending road of life, rushing toward the next goal; the next destination. And for these two young men, that moment was all they were allowed. That moment of speed and then nothingness. 

In his hurry to get home to enjoy the beer he’d just bought at the same gas station I’d gone to, the motorcyclist had lost control of his cycle.  He hit that badly-banked curve in too much of a hurry and given up the beer, the night, the weeks and months ahead, his girlfriend and his family.


And I had to be thankful that I had not been caught up in my own hurry to get to my destination on these two moments in time. That I’d taken that U-turn into the darkness to spend that hour with a total stranger in the dark, instead of hurrying home to the bed which had been so passionately calling my name.


That I’d stopped to share my blankets with the shirtless, mangled man in the gutter breathing his last, and his also shirtless, distraught brother rather than hurrying home with my already-melting bag of coveted ice.


Next time you find yourself rushing to your destination, remember that there is no telling what is round the bend. That you should take the time to live the moment you have. 

It’s really not about the destination. It’s the journey that we need to embrace rather than the destination we hope to reach. For no man knows when his hour will come.


Liz Carson Rosas
10 Dec 2009





Whatever your hand finds to do,
do it with all your might, for in the grave,
where you are going, there is neither working
nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

I have seen something else under the sun:
The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
or wealth to the brilliant
or favor to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all.

Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come:
As fish are caught in a cruel net,
or birds are taken in a snare,
so men are trapped by evil times
that fall unexpectedly upon them.
-- Eclesiastes 9:11-12

U-Haul

No miracles today... Well, it was almost a miracle. 

I almost wrote about this last week, but was just too darn tired.

But last Thursday was the big moving day. I picked up a U-Haul in Riverside and met my son, Nick at the Riverside house where I've lived with my sister the last three years.

Things were complicated by the fact that my sister will not let anyone in her house. So the furniture and boxes from my room I had to wheel out myself on the dolly.

That was enough to wear me out.

Then came the boxes full of memories. Box after box out of the garage. A box of old Halloween costumes I made for the kids when they were young. 

I thought maybe this year we could give them away, but they brought out the sentimental side of Nick.

Next came the box of photos and photo albums. Wedding photos - a reminder of days of bliss and naiveté. Photos of my girls, smiling and innocent, hugging their mother who loved them. A reminder of simpler days. Box after box of Christmas decorations - each a reminder of someone or some event.

Then of course came my drawers and drawers of fabric - which I will soon be able to use when I start making my quilts once again (something I am soooo excited about doing!)

And last, but not least, my antique drafting table made of cast iron and oak.

The thing weighs a ton, but is really a thing of beauty. And just so perfect for designing my quilts on!

By the end of the afternoon we were all exhausted. Every muscle in my back burned with fire.

And I could not be more thankful for my dear, loyal Nick. 

He did the majority of the lifting, with me helping him here and there with the really big things.

He lifted and carried and organized and packed the van with precision.

And he only grumbled a couple of times. But he stopped when I gently reminded him that his dear old mom is actually a middle-aged woman now and no longer the super woman she used to be. (I think that might have been a revelation to him.)

With everything packed in, I had Nick drive the U-Haul truck back out to the road (as we had to drive over the curb to avoid the low-hanging branches on Patty’s beautiful crepe myrtle tree.)

He expertly maneuvered around the rock retaining wall, over the curb and parked it in the middle of the street, facing down the hill. He put on the emergency brake and hopped down.

“Okay, mom. I need to buy gas, so I’m going to go down to the gas station and I’ll meet you there.”

He left in his car and I climbed up into the U-Haul truck and tried to release the brake. 

Nothing. 

I thought maybe I wasn’t pushing hard enough since that was my sore knee and I had a knee brace on. 

I pushed again. 

And again.

Nothing.

I tried it in drive, in neutral, with the engine off, the engine on… Nothing!

So I called the 800 number on the rental agreement to ask what I was doing wrong. It rang forever and then I was put on hold for five minutes. In the meantime, people are driving around me, honking to let me know I am in the way - duh!

Finally, the woman comes on the line and tells me I have to press the brake all the way to the floor to release it. Told her it was done, but to no avail.

“Okay. Did you try it in neutral?”

I put it in neutral and tried again. Nothing.

“That’s okay. There’s a hand release, but it is hard to find. If you get down out of the truck and look under the console where the steering column goes under the dash, you’ll see it up underneath. It’s kind of hard to find…”

“Okay, I am out of the truck, but I don’t see it…”

She waits patiently while I duck my head between the seat and the console and feel around for the hidden release.

“Aha! I see it!”

“Okay, pull that outward and the brake will release.”

It did. But guess what! The truck is still in neutral! 
It lurches forward and takes off, rolling down the steep hill, gaining momentum by the second! 

That first, sudden lurch sends a tearing sensation down the muscles of my lower back and in that second I knew I’d be in pain by the morning.

I had one hand on the door and the other on my phone. 

In the flash of a second, I hear her asking, “Did that work?” as my brain is registering that the truck is now rolling down the hill at quite a clip!

Running along, my hand on the door, I reached up with my phone hand, and grabbed at the steering wheel (the bottom of which was about level with the top of my head) and the truck swerves to the left (where I am) and toward the left side of the road.

I am running as fast as I can - still holding the phone! - and realize someone in an SUV is trying to pass me on the left and I am about to collide with them (with me in between the vehicles!) 

And I am still running and still holding the phone…

I grab at the bottom of the steering wheel, calculating quickly and aiming for the 5:00 position. But the truck now veers toward the right side of the road where a half dozen cars are parked along the side of the road in front of houses. Somehow, in my panic, I miscalculated. (Go figure!)

About this time, I am thanking God that I paid the extra $28 for the million dollar insurance coverage - and inexplicably, I’m still holding the phone!

My legs are giving out as the truck continues to pick up speed and each stride is longer and faster. 

I’ll never make it! I am running and trying to steer the truck so that it at least stays in the right lane, but not too close to the parked car - and amazingly, I’m still holding the phone.

I can hear bits of the woman’s voice on the other end of the line… 

“Are you there?  Are you okay?  Hello..?”

I realize if I can at least keep it in the center of the road I at least won’t wreck anyone’s car. And providing that I can make it across the road at the bottom of the hill where our street dead ends into the Sierra Vista, I will only crash into the church office building.

Hopefully nobody will get hurt. I’ll let go of the truck before it gets to the crossroad, just in case. 

And again I think to thank God I paid the extra $28 for the million dollar insurance coverage - and I’m still holding the phone!  

But only because it's in the same hand that is trying to hold onto the wheel while I try not to let my feet get dragged under the truck!

I don’t know exactly how it happened, but somehow I miraculously found myself in the shoulder-high driver’s seat, my heart racing so fast it frightened me more than the runaway truck.

I had mustered every ounce of strength I had and launched myself at the wheel, pulling with both arms (as my legs were now basically just flapping along behind me on the pavement trying to keep up as we barreled down the hillside.)

Scrambling across the bench seat, I fumbled to get my now exhausted and somewhat numb feet into the floor of the truck and stomp on the brake.

The truck finally, against all odds, comes to a stop about four or five houses down the hill from our original position, and believe it or not, I’m still holding the darn phone!

The woman on the other end asks, “Did you find the hand release?”

I had a rising urge to laugh hysterically, but somehow I refrained. 

After a couple of gasping breaths, I gasped, “Yes, I found it. Thanks!” and hung up.

I sat there for several moments just trying to gain my composer and catch my breath. The phone - which I’d finally dropped onto the passenger seat - begins to ring, and with shaking hands, I pick it up and answer.

“Mom, where are you?!!”

“Uh…I’m just getting ready to leave.”

“What’s taking you so long?”

“Uh…I just had a little trouble with the emergency brake, but it’s all good now.” My voice is shaking.

“Are you okay?”

“Uh…yeah…I’m fine. Pam needs gas too, so we’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

And with a sigh of relief and a prayer of thanks, I finally put the truck into drive and call the day a success.

I’ve found that the road through life is seldom what you think it is going to be. 

Sometimes the brakes of life keep you stuck in a place you don't want to be. 

And sometimes things travel faster than you’d planned. But if you just hold onto that lifeline as you run down the hill of life, doing your best to keep on the road, things will turn out okay.

So here’s to another Friday night, and my son who carried most of the burdens, and traveling down memory lane and being able to remember the good times and let the rest just remain behind….