Life changing moments

I experienced a life changing moment this weekend.  I did not kill a bicyclist.  About 9pm on Saturday,  we had gotten in our car to head home.   We had just watched the Portland Timbers in an exciting soccer match at PGE Park.  It was a lovely evening.  I had stopped at the light at 16th and Everett heading east just where a right hand turn takes you onto I405 and the freeway home.    The light turned green and I started moving forward, ready to make a right hand turn.  Just barely out of the corner of my eye I sensed movement and hit the brakes.    A bicyclist shot past me in the bike lane to the right, just inches from my right front fender.   He turned to look over his shoulder as he continued into the dark.  I was aghast.  I realized that I had not had my right turn blinker on at that point,  so he could not have known that I was planning to pull right.   He had obviously come into the intersection at full speed so that my awareness he was there was simply a matter of chance.  If I had moved five feet forward and a foot to the right,  he would have crashed into me at speed and been flung away, badly injured I am sure.    The incident played over and over in my mind since then.   I realized how casual I had been about having my blinker on.   I realized how impossible it would have been to avoid a terrible accident were it not for chance, an accident that would have had life-changing consequences I'm certain for both of us.   I thanked God that I had had that tiny instant of warning.   And the more I thought about it,  the more I realized that I should have been profoundly touched as much by there not being ill consequences as I would have been if there had.   A small thing, perhaps,  but a moment of great opportunity.  And reminder that life can change in a heartbeat,  and does.