December 26th.

There is a spot on Barber Greene Road in DeKalb, Illinois, that is holy ground. I look for it every time I pass, which is at least four times a day, maybe six. You can’t see it.  It’s just concrete and a gravel shoulder.  You’d miss it if you were talking on the phone, or texting.  But, it’s holy ground.

Everyone drives this road on their way to Wal-Mart.  Past the municipal airport and cornfields.  Nothing to see.  Maybe a single engine airplane descending to a runway.  A truck in the harvested field.  But, there is a spot, about a hundred yards west of Somonauk Road.  On the north side.  It’s holy ground.

On December 26^th, the day after Christmas, I saw it.  I saw her.

Turning west onto Barber Greene, I noticed a woman with her car stopped on the shoulder.  She was standing in the cold, talking on her cell phone.  She looked panicked.  What is she doing out here?  It’s freezing.  Is she having car trouble?  Ahead, past her car, in the middle of the road, was an SUV turned over, passenger side to pavement.  Blown out windows.  Glass pieces splayed-out south across the road.  Yet, still:  Is this something I need to stop for?  Can I just pull around?  Slowly, across glass and debris, I peered beyond the SUV, and there it was:  the burning bush.  There she was. 

Sitting?  No.  Prone. Face down against cold, gray concrete.  Arms and hands stretched above her head to the northeast. 

Pulling beyond her, I got out of my car, and ran towards her.  Slower than even I run.  Boots feeling like astronauts’ on cold, gray pavement.  The wind cutting through that flat, open space, from cold, gray sky.  High definition, this figure: outlined, stark.  This is not where a woman is supposed to lie prostrate, the day after Christmas.  I found myself stooping as I came towards her.  Slower and slower.  No sound except for the wind.  I know why the woman on her cell phone stayed her distance; she knew better than to approach. 

Radiating about the victim’s head, a cardinal red circle.

I curved towards her, and in hushed voice, “Are you okay?  Are you okay?”  Please be okay.  My question got caught up in the wind.  It was too late to ask it.  She was not okay.  I had nothing to offer her.

I should have removed my boots at that spot.

“Don’t touch her!  Don’t touch her!”  Two women came running up to the victim, calling to me.  Kneeling beside her.  Ministering.  “I can’t find a pulse,” one said.  They were nurses.

I checked the SUV for other passengers.  The windshield had a shattered hole, the barrel through which she launched.  She had not been wearing a seatbelt.  Inside the SUV was a car seat, and a baby bottle, and a stroller.  I checked the vehicle, and the road, and the ditches.  No baby.  Thank you, Jesus. 

“Take my keys.  There’s a blanket in the backseat of my car,” one nurse called to me.   Yes.  I ran like an astronaut, retrieving the Mickey Mouse fleece blanket.  At that moment I remembered I should pray for this woman.

“She has a pulse,” one nurse exclaimed.  They turned the woman over, cradling her.  No concern over the blood.  “I can hear her bones breaking when she breathes.”  Maybe I prayed for the wrong thing.

There was no recognizing her.  She could have been thirty or fifty.  But, I knew her name.  I only knew because I had taken to collecting her belongings that were strewn down the road.  A purse.  A comb.  Glasses.  Reading glasses. A phone.  Prescription bottles revealing her name .  I collected them in a bucket from her vehicle.  She did not wake that morning thinking that she would be here on the road, after lunch.

Other drivers began to stop and look busy.  But, there was nothing we could do. There we all were, orbiting this woman.  Gently collecting her belongings.  Some holding her.  A woman for whom I wouldn’t have given a second thought, if I saw her at a stoplight.  A woman I might have cursed in my head if she were driving poorly.  Cursed her because she was impeding my progress.  And now, I know her name.  There we all were afraid, and fragile, and small, and clarified, under cold, gray sky.  All of us, too late. 

Later, the police arrived.  Even later, an ambulance.

When does one leave an accident?  When does one leave a burning bush?  There is no check-out procedure.  No sign-out sheet.  I got back in my car and drove to my office.

I checked for news updates.  She was pronounced dead at the hospital.

There is a spot on Barber Greene Road in DeKalb, Illinois that is holy ground.