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I cursed traffic; I cursed bad drivers; I cursed the spilled cup of coffee that settled strategically onto my lap. I cursed the early morning rush on the PA Turnpike in all its glory and persistence! The commute to my business meeting was a nightmare, in every sense of the word, so I turned to my one solace who was also battling the morning traffic monstrosity in another part of the state - my husband - a truck driver.

I dialed his number and was immediately relieved to hear his voice, although I was secretly content to know that he, too, was in a foul mood! "A comrade in my fierce hatred of all things on 4-wheels," I laughed as I thought. My husband, after all, is the one who instilled in me this nit-picking, perfectionist, negative view of the beasts. I trust his perspective; he is, after all, a professional, and I trust him to know the ins-and-outs and goods-and-bads of the asphalt arena and to navigate it with safety and ease. I suspected that he was the best driver on the road, as most truck drivers' wives do.

In retrospect, this suspicion was likely a defense mechanism employed by all truckers' wives. It helps us to sleep at night knowing that our husbands can handle all that is thrown their way on the open road. It helps us to tackle each day without the lingering fear that one wrong move from my husband could send him reeling into a ditch and prompt a visit from the State Police. Indeed! These thoughts are too much to bear, so I kept them at bay until this day. There was no way to prepare myself for the earth-shattering noise that was about to ring out from the other end of the phone.

I was mid-sentence when I heard profanities fly from my husband's mouth, and what followed was deafening: screeching, skidding, the sound of metal on metal and, finally, an eerie cry from the colossal monster as its wounded body settled into a dusty ditch. My heart sank, my throat closed, my mouth opened, the phone wanted desperately to drop from my hands but was prevented from doing so by the death grip that held it closely to my ear. I spoke softly and with the belief that vibrations from my voice would exacerbate the situation, and I waited for what seemed like hours for my husband to respond. I was relieved that he was alive, and even more relieved that the first words he spoke were more profanities, as this meant he was likely angry, but probably not hurt. I breathed a cautious sigh of relief, but could not fight the nausea that was building in my gut. All at once, my spilled coffee became the lesser of 2 messes that I would later have to clean up.

My husband was in an accident that morning that resulted only in damage to his truck. In attempt to avoid a 4-wheeler that suddenly pulled in front him, my husband took the low road, ate a guard-rail, and settled in to a ditch on a terrifying morning that will live in infamy. He avoided, at his own risk and as I listened on the other end of the phone, what could have been a fatal accident involving a carpooling Mom. It was at that moment that his voice rang in my ears: "OTHER drivers scare the hell out of me!" How right he was.

I use a few new words to describe my husband now: Brave and Selfless. In fact, I typically use these words to describe most professional truck drivers. How lucky other men are that drivers, like my husband, are willing to risk their own lives to preserve the lives of wives and children who sometimes carelessly travel the road. I don't sleep as easily at night, and the sounds of his accident still reverberate in my mind and shake the very core of my soul on a daily basis, but I know a secret shared only by truck drivers' wives: gumption and courage make a man, and our men make us proud.

Such is the life of a Truck Driver's wife.

A Trucker's Wife is a column that is written by a different guest writer each month. If you would like to share your thoughts and feelings with other homefront spouses email us at imatruckerswife@layover.com .