Unfinished Prayer

by Anita Charles

Our pleasant drive to a winter resort ended in a sudden terrifying plunge down an embankment. Mom tried to pray, but her words were cut short as we rolled toward the icy river below.

I came to a significant awareness of the power of my mother’s faith and prayers when I was 11 years old. During Christmas vacation our family took a trip to a nearby winter resort for a day of ice skating, tubing, and sleigh riding. Friends were included, and the group expanded to fill two cars. My father led the way, driving one car with his father, my older sister, and several of her girlfriends. My mother followed in our smaller car with my younger brother, Ron, and sister Gini in the front. Our Lamanite foster-sister, a girlfriend of mine, and I were in the back.

The road leading to our destination followed an icy and fairly rapid river. We were almost there and spirits were high in our car with lots of laughing and singing when an urgent, “Oh, no!” from my mother diverted our attention. Suddenly we were tumbled about and submerged in the freezing river. An important part of the steering mechanism of the car had broken, and the car had slid down the embankment and turned upside down in the river. The car landed on a big boulder and was not completely submerged, but only the wheels and parts of the underside were above water. Mother, Ron, and Gini were all thrown into the backseat. Several of the windows had been shattered, and water filled the car except for an occasional pocket of air that had risen into the floor wells and become trapped as we were beneath the water.

Meanwhile, on the road above, traffic stopped in both directions and people poured out of their cars. A man was first to get to the edge of the embankment, and as two more men came running up he observed, “It was clear full of people and they’re gone. They’re gone.” Not waiting to hear any more the second pair plunged down the bank and began struggling with the car doors. When they realized the doors on the shore side were jammed fast, they found a broken window, kicked away the broken glass, and reaching through found what must have seemed like countless floundering legs and arms.

Inside the car, on the opposite side, Mother managed to find an air pocket and gasped quickly, “Push against me.” Ron was the only one that heard and comprehended. He tried to help as she struggled to push the door open against the current. She got one leg and one arm through and then managed to pull herself and Ron out and push him on the top (which was actually the bottom) of the car. The pressure of the water pushing against the door left her leg and arm bruised black as coal for many days after.

By the time Mother got Ron and herself out of the car, Dad realized, up ahead, that something was wrong. Never dreaming it was his own family but knowing if there was trouble Mom would stop to help, he pulled over and ran back to see if he could help also. You can imagine the shock he felt when he saw his daughters being tossed from the river to the bank by the two men who had pulled us through the window of the back door. Ron was sitting on the bottom of the car and Mother was still clinging to the side in the middle of the river. Dad crashed down the bank to the river, and, ignoring a warning that it was deep, tossed Ron to the men on the bank and pulled Mother from the water. I remember seeing them standing on the bottom of the car with water churning around them counting us over and over as the people on the bank kindly wrapped us in blankets.

Miraculously we were all safe and no one was seriously hurt. It was a miracle and an answer to prayer. After we got home and the full realization of what had happened came, I walked into my parents’ room and found my mom crying quietly in Dad’s arms. One of the things she said that I will never forget was that when she realized she had absolutely no control of the car and we were slipping down the bank toward the water she only had time to pray silently, “O Father in Heaven,” before we hit the water. I had no doubt then, and have none now, that Heavenly Father heard the desperate beginnings of my mother’s prayer and answered the yet unspoken plea of a daughter who had been faithful and prayerful all her life.

Illustrated by Rob McKay