I fell asleep at the wheel a few weeks back on a trip from Texas to California. It was only for an instant, I think, but one minute I was listening to a radio talk show with Ray crumpled in the other seat, sound asleep, and the next minute I was waking up to the sound of the rumble strips on the edge of the road.

The part that bothered me the most was that I had no awareness of falling asleep. I just drifted off as if I were in my bed with the covers pulled up snug under my chin, not driving down a lonely West Texas highway at 11 pm going 85 miles an hour.

Yes, I knew I was tired. I knew that I had been up since 6 am, been busy all day, was too tired to safely be driving that late. But I had been sucking on ice, listening to the radio, zipping along. I thought I was fine…

At the sound of the rumble strips, apparently, I yelled out. I woke Ray, who sat straight up and said in a sleepy, but stressed voice, “What’s happening?”

“Don’t worry, “ I said. “I fell asleep at the wheel but I’m okay now.” I guided the too-fast car off the far shoulder and back onto the road.

“No, you’re not okay,” Ray said. “I want you to pull over right now.”

Upon his insistence, I took the next exit. It was unmarked, but at least not on the highway.

I pulled onto the shoulder of the side road and got out. The sky was bright with stars. There was no sign of another car on either side of the nearby highway. Ray got out, too, to take over driving. As we started off again – still no cars – Ray said, “Do you think we’re dead and just don’t realize it yet? There’s nobody out here and the exit we took didn’t have a sign.”

“If we’re dead,” I said, “then we must be in purgatory. I’m sure not seeing any Pearly Gates around.”

We drove 10 minutes to the next little town and pulled into a Best Western with a full parking lot. Ray waited in the car while I went in. “We’re full,” the girl behind the desk said. “Go to the next motel up the road.”

We pulled into a less impressive (and less full) motel parking lot about five minutes later. I walked into a dimly lit lobby with an Indian man standing behind the desk. “Rooms? Oh, sure,” he said. “We have plenty.”

Our room reeked of bug spray and floral air freshener.

“Do we want to stay?” I said.

“We’re too tired to drive,” Ray said, “and it’s already midnight. Besides, I’m still not convinced we’re not dead.”

Ray remained unsure of our status until we returned to LA. At that point, he accepted that we were not souls drifting through the early phase of the afterlife, but rather still living, breathing entities.

The part of this event that continues to nag at me is how simple it was for me to lose consciousness while blazing through the night in a speeding vehicle. No head nodding forewarned me; not even excessive yawning. No, it was simple. One second I was awake; the next, I was asleep.

I am profoundly aware that this is how people die when driving too late or too tired.

A morbid question keeps floating around in my mind: Would either of us have awakened upon impact or simply had ours lives snuffed out like two candles?

Clearly, I need to not drive anymore when I’m fatigued. That is one lesson learned. But the one that is more significant is how thin the line is between life and death; one half step away at all times in all places for all living things.

I am glad I woke up. I’m glad I was able to guide the car back onto the road without incident. I am especially glad that I did not kill my husband or myself.

That is the happy part of this story.

I must add that I thought it was sweet of Ray to think that we’d be together in death as in life.

Very sweet, indeed.