Good Shepherd Nika

On a two-lane highway in Tennessee, the pickup truck in front of me suddenly pulled off onto the grass shoulder and came to a complete stop. Then the eighteen-wheeler behind me pulled over too. I pulled onto the grass and looked through my windshield, expecting a wreck or a fallen tree. Coming from the opposite direction was a black hearse, followed by a line of forty cars with their headlights shining in the afternoon sun. Nobody on our side of the road knew the person in that hearse. Yet every single vehicle in my lane had stopped dead. Across the ditch, two road workers in orange vests shut off their grass trimmers. They took off their hard hats, held them over their chests, and stood at attention in the weeds. The driver of the pickup in front of me stepped out onto the gravel, removed his dusty baseball cap, and bowed his head until the very last car with a purple funeral flag had passed. It took three minutes. Nobody honked. Nobody checked their phone. People who only see America on television think this country moves too fast to care about strangers. They have never stood on the shoulder of a Tennessee highway and watched a hundred working men stop the world for someone else's mother.