Though I very rarely think in pictures and most often tend to have a steady stream of words and music running through my head, the times when I do think almost exclusively in images are often memorable and emotionally charged.

One of those times happened this weekend, near the beginning of another long car ride up to Pennsylvania.  Doug was happily rocking out to DC 101 and I wanted to use the 110-mile commute to hack through another Jonathan Kozol book before seeing him speak on Wednesday, so I put on headphones with wordless music.  Shortly after merging onto I-95 North I was jarred from my book by Doug urgently nudging my arm.  I scrunched my eyebrows and removed one of my earbuds.

"I just saw that car flip over, like, four times."

Absorbed in words on a page, I had missed this.  A BMW Z3 lay upside down in pieces on our side of the median, a special delivery from the middle lane on the southbound side.  As Doug pulled over onto the left shoulder, leaped from the car without shutting the engine off and began running toward the scene, I saw the driver of the car climb out the window and step away, like race car drivers do after their cars flip end over end into the center of the track.

I turned the key to off.  What if there was a passenger?  The first image I saw was of this man frantically calling for help, asking someone to save a passenger who was already dead.  The second was of myself, small and broken on the grassy median, torn to pieces by anguish and tragedy I had been forced to witness.  I knew I would cry, I knew I would be unable to stand.  I thought of Doug, running to the side of the car and being one of the first to look inside.  What image would he see?

If for no other reason than I did not want the burden of those images to be his alone between us, I grabbed my phone from my purse and got out of the car.  I joined a growing procession of passersby who had parked on both sides of the median and were jogging to the scene.

Before I arrived, I was met by Doug jogging against the flow, back toward me.

"He's fine."

Personal affects and pieces of the car, small and large, had been scattered about on the grass.  The tiny car had been launched over two lanes, a guardrail and most of the median, flipping several times and landing upside down, and somehow the sole occupant had walked away with no injuries.

I turned around to see one of the strangest sights I have ever encountered.  The number of people who had pulled over and began walking or running to the overturned vehicle was eerie, inspiring, and heartbreaking.  In this moment we had all seen our own lives flash before our eyes, and as we waved each other on and announced the shockingly positive outcome of this sudden chaos, I'm sure that image remained etched in our minds as we made our way back onto the interstate.

None of the images of those few minutes will escape me.  Not the ones my worried mind conjured, not the real image of the wreckage, and not the gathering of so many human travelers concerned for the fate of one of our own.