I come naturally by my love of road trips; of just getting out and seeing what lies over the hill or around the bend. As an Air Force family, we moved quite often. Before I was four we had lived in Mississippi, New York and Colorado. There are many stories of the family traveling the highways – my dad in his Volkswagon bus, mom in her VW Bug – on our way to the next base. Once we settled in Houston, we would take day trips to Galveston or into East Texas. Several times, we made the trek back to Colorado to visit my grandmother before she passed. But it was in the past 10 years or so that my mother and I became regular traveling companions.
We always seemed to live not far from each other – anywhere from a few blocks to a few miles. In recent years, I would be up on a Saturday morning enjoying a cup of coffee and a rest from working, when the phone would ring. It was usually my mother. She would let out with a cheery, “Good morning!” and then, the inevitable question – “Whatcha doin’?” This was my signal that road trip was in order that day. She would declare that the walls were closing in on her and that she just needed to get out for awhile. Well, “getting out for awhile” could mean a short ride to one of her favorite East Texas towns – Edom, Jefferson, Palestine or Mineola – or it could mean we could plan on not being back until late in the evening. You see, we might have a destination in mind, but once there and finished looking around or having lunch, I would look at her and say, “Could you go a little farther?” She usually said, “Sure!” and off we would go on down some back road or to the next little town. Once we drove from Fort Worth to Marble Falls (about 180 miles one way) just enjoying the scenery, telling stories, stopping at little towns to look around and having some great conversations. You could be sure that if there were great old homes, antique shops or a historic cemetery, we would be stopping. We also made overnight trips wandering around Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma. If we ever got “lost,” she would play navigator and pull out the map to help get me back to a main highway. Pure fun! I came to understand that these road trips were our way of decompressing and relieving stress – me from work, her from worries about family (which she swore she wouldn’t do but inevitably did anyway!).
Tomorrow, I’ll be heading out on another big road trip from Houston to Gatlinburg, TN to Arlington, VA and back to Houston. (I’m not sure what route to take home, yet!) This time, however, my mother – my navigator, my travel companion, my friend – won’t be coming with me. After battling and surviving breast cancer, and living most of her life with the pain of arthritis, she passed away this past March after a bout of pneumonia and the toll it took on her lungs. It happened suddenly. She had been in and out of the hospital for a couple of months, but every indication was that while her life would be spent with oxygen always nearby and that long, wandering road trips would be a thing of the past, there would still be many opportunities to take short drives to her favorite spots in East Texas. (Before she was hospitalized, we had talked about driving to Florida this summer.) What I wouldn't give to get one more Saturday morning phone call asking, "Whatcha doin'?" Even though that won't happen, I know I have one of the best heavenly co-pilots I could ask for watching over my upcoming travels.
Thanks, Momma.
