One of the reasons why I keep my home phone land line is because the voice mail offers a wake-up call. I’m a sound sleeper. While the alarm clock rarely wakes me up, the phone always will. Every morning voice mail calls me. My radio comes on right afterwards.

Last night #1 Son was not home when I went to bed, but he was expected shortly. I left the kitchen hall light on for him and went to sleep.

This morning the radio came on. There had been a terrible accident. A car traveling at a high speed had hit a curb, a lamp post and a fence, then went off an overpass, rolled several times and landed upside down in a stream. The driver and passenger were both killed. Names were being withheld pending family notification.

This was a block from my house.

This was the exact place where two weeks ago #1 Son hit the curb hard enough to split his tire sidewall and dent the rim.

Instantly very wide awake, I looked down the hall towards the kitchen. The light was off. #1 Son was home. I got up and looked out front. His car was there. It was in one piece. I opened his door and peeked in. He was peacefully asleep.

I sat down on my bed, feeling shaken.

In the 10 years or so that I’ve lived in this neighborhood, I don’t ever remember another fatal accident on that road. But the road used to be a lot scarier: narrow, windy, dark, with a sharp drop-off on the north side down to the stream. People drove carefully. Then the road was moved north away from the stream, flattened out, made wider, lighted. It seems safer — safe enough, apparently, to drive very, very fast.

A couple of weeks ago, when asked what happened, #1 Son said that it was late at night, dark, rainy, and he just wasn’t paying close enough attention. This on a road he’s driven on since they built it.

He said, “you know, Mom, they told me in driver’s ed that after I’d been driving for awhile you tend to become complacent. Guess they were right. I could have been killed.

It was a good wake-up call.”