My son turns sixteen tomorrow. He takes his driving test after school. Willy’s my youngest. If he passes, my kid-hauling era ends.
I was wearing shoulder pads and stirrup pants when I buckled my eldest into a rear-facing car seat at the hospital door. It was May 25, 1988. I have served 8,353 days behind the parental wheel. I’m not entirely ready to have it end.
True, there have been sacrifices. When I first became a mother, I drove a Mazda RX7 It had a rotary engine and flip-up headlights. I traded it for a Subaru wagon before my eldest was two months old. I stood steadfast against the temptations of mini-vans, and mostly opted for four-doors: a Civic, a short-lived Matrix and my long suffering Honda Accord.
You do a lot of parenting in your family car. I remember picking up Ellen from Montessori school, her eyes lighting up when she saw the chocolate bakery cookie waiting for her on the dashboard. Some mornings, driving Maggie to middle school the charge leapt between us like prongs in a Jacob’s ladder. Then, she’d play the heart-wrenching Dixie Chicks ballad, Traveling Soldier and get me to cry. And that’s the sort of victory every teenage girl needs sometimes.
Willy would philosophize from the backseat, talking to me in the rearview mirror. He’d start with, “Mom, do you ever wonder…” and follow up with something that almost made sense. “Maybe the sun cycle is really a guy peddling a bicycle and in winter he peddles slower so the sun doesn’t go as far.”
Willy’s mostly quiet now, on the way to school and the way home. I don’t really mind. I relish the feeling of being bound on the same journey, even if it’s just the orthodontist we’re bound for.
Public transit is impractical in our town. To bust out of our suburban bubble, you have to drive. On their sixteenth birthdays, their father has generously provided each of our children with a decent vehicle and good insurance.
We are a family of drivers. Their dad runs a courier company. I grew up taking cross-country trips in a Model T Ford. I’m one of the rare individuals who enjoy giving driving lessons. All three of my children got their learner’s permit promptly at fifteen years of age. They change a lot in their year of apprenticeship.
Willy and I drove to Montana for Spring Break. We were west of Fargo, and Willy was at the wheel when a blizzard dropped on us suddenly from the north. The windshield went white, as if a sheet had blown off a clothesline and wrapped the car. It was night. Willy turned off the radio. “I’m just going to follow the taillights,” he said. The taillights disappeared beneath an overpass. Willy speed up to pace. A blast of driven snow robbed the last visibility. “I’m going to edge over and listen for the rumble strips on the shoulder,” said Willy. I turned around and saw a semi trundling toward us from behind. “I think I’ll turn on the flashers,” said Willy. The Caselton exit appeared. “I’m going to get off here,” said Willy.
“Good call,” I said.
The desk clerk said the interstate was closed and the rooms were filling fast. That night, in the darkness after he’d turned out the light, Willy asked, “What was the most intense driving Maggie or Ellen did when they just had their permit?”
“Well, Maggie drove in a snowstorm to St. Paul and Ellen drove at night on the freeway in construction in the rain,” I said, “but nothing like that. That was the most intense driving any of you guys ever did with me.”
“Sweet,” said Willy.
Happy Birthday Willy, safe travels. I send you off with all the confidence borne of seeing the man who emerges when you face an emergency. Though my days of driving you are over, I hope our road-trips continue. Perhaps a few decades hence, we’ll be bound again in transportation dependence, but you will be driving me.