Dear Friends
As I look at the road I have travelled for the past 25 years and more in my business I have to admit that one of the most important elements in my drive was " Faith" I mentioned in the past weeks courage and determination and in the future I will share other threats that I found necessary to continue but noting would even come close to faith in achieving success. Never that I can remember I have lost faith in "God " to help me through in any difficulty that I have encountered. It is only in extreme that I found necessary to look at faith either when I was extremely successful and happy and looking to the source of such a bounty or in the extreme when only a miracle would have done. I am going to share with you now one of those extremes :

I have sent lots of Emails to friends and family and shared lots of others that I received but never sent one about myself as the recipient of a miracle before now. It happened last Saturday the day when it was officially SRE's 24th birthday. The day started on an exciting note, We were catering Cappuccino at the Safari Trade Show going on at the Market Hall in Dallas and since it was a cold and rainy day we were busier than ever selling cappuccino more than at any other time in the past years when we catered this yearly event. At the office I had a couple of visitors that made some purchases and in the afternoon I got a call for some supplies by Francesco my Barista tending the cappuccino bar. One of the items he needed was biscotti and since we run out I called Bill to get some help and get these at Sams on I20 and great southwest, I would meet him there at 4.30 I would get the supplies and would drive to deliver them to Dallas. I loaded my SUV and headed to Dallas, it was about 4pm when I headed toward Dallas and it was getting cold and misty drizzle was falling. It was so light that I had the windshield wipers intermittent. Traffic was rather heavy and I was going at the traffic speed when I took the exit off I20 to go on Spur 408. I failed to realize something I experienced several years a go, over 20 to be exact when I was coming back from Saint Louis and a big freeze was on the way and I still remembered how as the sun set down almost instantly the water on the road froze and it turned into a skating rink. This time of the day when the sun was just setting was not that drastic all over the roads but bridges were a different story. The temperature was not so cold and that was deceiving. As I took the exit I had to go over an overpass and there was the shock waiting for me. A little over fifty yards on the overpass as I was just over the highway I saw my vehicle spun out of control it hit the right guardrail spun over to the other side and hit the wall it spun again to the right and hit the right side again all the while I was unable to control any of this. I literally saw a demon take over my steering wheel and try to destroy me, but with all the banging and hitting my vehicle finally came to a rest against the right guardrail right above the westbound side of the highway. All the while I was being rammed all over the entire road by this demon; my guardian angel was trying to minimize my agony by keeping away all vehicles from that road. It is almost unthinkable that during these almost ten to fifteen seconds of hell no car came through and so I did not have an almost inevitable crash with another vehicle that who knows, it could have been fatal. As my vehicle came to a stop pressed against the right rail I noticed a tire ten/twenty feet behind me. I thought I lost one tire but as I got out I noticed I had them all so I concluded that evidently when I hit the wall in the violent spin with the back it ejected the spare tire. I walked to retrieve the tire failing to realize until later the danger I was exposing myself by walking on a frozen surface and with lots of cars now coming my way. I put the wheel in the back of the vehicle and entered. At this point I hoped to be able to get out of the way. I felt pain on my back that evidently I put out during the violent jerking I was subjected. I was able to start the vehicle in neutral and to my total surprise I was able to move, even though the front wheels were turned to opposite sides due to the fact that I hit both sides’ fenders. Slowly I was able to move about fifty yards forward and to go off to the right bank on the grass well out of the way. It was at this time (while I was calling Bill to ask him to come rescue me) when I realized the incredible danger I was in when I had the accident (if another car would have hit me during the time I was out of control) and more so when I got out and........... migrated so far away to retrieve the tire I had lost. There was no doubt in my mind as I was waiting for Bill and I felt relatively safe out of the traffic that I was alive by miracle. I saw several vehicles fall the same way I did with the only difference that in their case they must have suffered injuries. Soon lots of emergency vehicles were coming to the rescue of several mishaps that occurred not only on the road I was in but more so on the East bound overpass to I20 that was a lot higher in the air than my side was and therefore colder and more frozen up. Fire trucks were all over the place, police cars and ambulances were all over the place. When Bill came I tried driving thinking I could make it back to the office but realized soon that it would have been impossible so we parked on the side and called a wrecker that was there in less than half hour. It was evidence that I was the first to slide on ice that afternoon in that area. The wrecker said my call was the first of over a dozen they got in less than fifteen minutes (the time it took him from the call to when he left to rescue me). On the way to the office I still reflected on the danger I had been in and was now more than convinced that my guardian angel did keep me out of real harm. I was the recipient oh a gift from God "my life".
Thank you God!
Domenic