Our life is precarious, delicate, precious

By Fr. Jerome LeDoux
Contributing Columnist

Exactly 20 years after Siberian Express # 1, Siberian Express # 2 had hit the United States on January 9, 1982. As 20 years before, a bit of ice was detected on the water where the bay licked the shores of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. The mercury plunged to 12 degrees, rose to 20 the following day and to 32 the next day. With quite a bit of interest, there was no freeze thereafter until the following winter.

Christmas 1983 did not sink to those depths, but it was savage in it own right, starting a wicked freeze that went unbroken for eight consecutive days, even as far down as New Orleans. Though the following winter was mild by comparison, it had its own brand of freeze that left traces of snow and ice here and there.

Serving the faithful of St. Martin de Porres Church in Prairie View, Texas at that time, I decided to visit the Dukes family, my maternal cousins in Austin. With two passengers in the church station wagon, we began our journey to Austin just after dark. I wondered why the traffic on distant oncoming highway 290 East was crawling along. Unfortunately, I had a rude awakening when the station wagon that was set on cruising 55 mph suddenly spun counterclockwise and slid off the road.

Our good fortune and blessing was that the ravine was not too steep, even though one of our tires did blow. Astonished, we looked around and saw a dozen or so other cars that had suffered the same fate as ours. In no time flat, two young men who were doing both a hustle and a favor approached us, offering to change our tire at a very modest cost. Considering the weather, we happily consented.

Pulling back up the gradual slope was surprisingly easy, but , understanding that we were dealing with black ice in moderately hilly country, we ducked into the first hotel we encountered. To be sure, because of the shared lot of many, there was no room at the inn. However, the manager was kind enough to allow us to sleep in the hallway with scores of other adventurers. And slept we did until the sun was high enough the next morning to melt some of the ice and allow us to proceed.

Such was my introduction to black ice that is at its worst when one is not aware that it is on the road. Yesterday brought it all back to me when I read the chilling report about a medium-sized prison bus that was traveling on I-20 West from Abilene to El Paso, Texas. In an atmosphere that belied peril, the temperature was flirting with freezing in the area, especially at the early hour of 7:30 a.m., when the bus approached road FM 866 near Penwell, Texas, a bit west of Odessa. There had been some moisture that froze on the highway bridges. Unbeknown to the driver, he was approaching black ice at a potentially deadly speed.

Nullifying all traction of the tires, black ice on an overpass incapacitated the steering mechanism, slinging the bus off the road toward a passing freight train. At a speed apparently too high for icy conditions, the bus struck the middle of the train, ripped open an onboard 18-wheeler and was dragged a bit till the train stopped.

Of the 15 occupants of the bus, 10 were killed, three of the others are in critical condition and two are in serious condition. At 29, Tyler Townsend, the son of Karl and Petra Townsend, was the youngest of those killed by the collision. “He did not suffer at all,” an official told Petra. “He and the man next to him were struck in the head and were killed instantly.” Tyler’s parents had at least that degree of consolation.

But on the night before the scheduled transfer by bus, the Townsends had a much higher degree of peace and assurance from a telephone call by Tyler to his mother in Benbrook, a suburb of Fort Worth. The rather short conversation featured prayer for a safe journey and a series of back-and-forth committed “I love you.”

Prior to that conversation, Tyler had assured his mother that he had given his life over to Christ. Although baptism is an indelible sacrament that cannot be validly repeated, he nevertheless received God’s grace when he was rebaptized in prison, for one’s disposition for God’s grace is the most important thing of all.

With a strong show of faith, Petra Townsend told a TV Channels 8 and 11 interviewer, “What I know is that God received him into heaven, because when Tyler was in the Sanchez unit, he asked to be baptized again. He went to church there in the evenings.” She read from a recent card sent by Tyler who was battling back from drugs and other crimes, “The bond between mother and son lasts a lifetime.”

“I always believed he was going to change that path,” Petra added. “Tyler believed it too. He kept trying. He always wanted to please me.”

This article originally published in the February 2, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.