ON THE ROAD AGAIN [W, 11-22-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—ON THE ROAD AGAIN [W, 11-22-23]

 

It’s time for holiday travel. I always dreaded it. I’m the only person in our family who actually knows how to get out of the house. Nobody in my family can just get into a vehicle and go.

My parents spent several weeks living with us while my father had colon cancer surgery. We took Mother back to their house, 125 miles away, before we were able to take Daddy [all four of us kids called him that forever], since he had to have a second surgery for reattachment, and she wanted to be at home. When we were able to take Daddy home, too, we found Mother lying on the floor, where she had been for several hours because she had fallen and could not get up. She rebuffed our attempts to call an ambulance. We did anyway. She told the EMTs she would not go. They said she would. So she said, “Well, let’s stop at Hilltop Restaurant on the way. I’ll pay.” Anything to delay actually going.

When all the good-byes have been said, and the coats and boots are on, that’s the time to bring out the odd piece of furniture to add to the already strained trunk, or go pick a peck of tomatoes to take along, or argue about who should take how much of some left-over food in the refrigerator, or discuss at whose house the gathering for the next holiday will be, and who will bring what. All while standing at the door in a parka.

And it’s not just getting on the way that is the problem. It’s staying on the way. We used to do trips with two daughters, from when they were babies through teen years, with my parents, who were always old. It wasn’t a car full of people; it was a car full of bladders. And every one of them was on a different schedule for rest stops.

When it is time to go to bed, I think a person should get into bed, but I’m wrong. That’s when one is supposed to pull the sheets tighter and beat the hell out of the pillows, which is called fluffing the pillows.

I personally have always been eager to get on the road, to make good time [we’re totally lost but we’re making good time], to see what comes next, which is one reason I’ve never feared death.

Yet when Charon, the ferryman on the river Styx, comes to collect me, I suspect I’ll say, “Why don’t we stop at Hilltop first? I’ll pay.”

 

John Robert McFarland