The kids with Grandma Parker

cruising down the road

motor humming steadily

the soundtrack of life

Tony wrote me a book of haikus for Christmas two years ago. The second one applies to today as we roll south on Interstate 94 through Chicago, en route to central Indiana.

All of the disequilibrium that characterizes re-entry, for us seems to melt away with the blacktop and somehow, all seems right with the world. Sitting in the sunshine, my feet in Tony’s lap, kids quietly studying in the back seats, music playing, our brass bell and Islamic prayer beads swinging silently from the rearview mirror, we could drive forever.

It is in these hushed interludes between frantic visiting that I find my feet, settle my soul, and process all of the changes, experiences and adjustments that come with continental shift.

Our time with the Great Grandmas was just like them, great. I hope with all my heart to be able to continue a bit of the legacy of Grandma Parker, who loves with her whole heart and lays it all on the table three times a day. It’s my favourite thing to see Elisha curled up next to her with his head on her shoulder and know that he’ll carry her memory and her heart on into the world even after we, her grandchildren, are gone. I hope my kids absorb all of the best of the deep well of her character and her mammoth love and servants heart as they grow up in her shadow.

The kids with Grandma Miller

We said a tearful good-bye to Grandma Miller. She’s never been entirely “together” in any of the eighteen years I’ve known her, but by all measures she’s gotten much worse. We’re used to her brand of crazy: asking if my hair is naturally short, questioning who we are, asking where we are now, even as we’re in the same room with her, mistaking sons for husbands and grandsons for brothers-in-law and never quite sure which girl is Hannah and which is me, her continual confusion as to where we got this extra girl, Gabriel, and her inability to disconnect his long hair from his gender.

It’s not the crazy that makes us cry, it was thirty years ago that she completely forgot it was Thanksgiving and served canned Chef Boyardee Ravioli to the extended family when they showed up “unexpectedly.” We’re used to the crazy.

It was the last ten minutes of crystal clear lucidity that broke us. The time she spent going from person to person, hugging each of us. She told Ezra and Elisha to be good boys and later to be good men, to listen to their Daddy and Mama and to always remember that they had the best family. She told Hannah to keep playing her music, to grow up strong and to take care of her brothers. She told Gabe to be a good girl too. She took my middle aged hands in her own gnarled, frail ones and looked at me hard with her ice blue eyes. Her lip trembled as she thanked me for being part of her family, for taking care of Tony and for raising my kids. She promised us all that she would see us in heaven and that she’d tell the Lord that she had people down here who needed looking after. We all cried. She was saying good-bye.

None of us are ever promised more than the breath we’re in the process of taking. I work hard to live with that conscious awareness, but most of the time we say “see you later,” with full expectation of another time and another place with the people we love. The last ten times we’ve seen Grandma Miller we’ve hugged her hard and known it might be the last, but she’s never said good-bye like this before, she’s never been sane while saying it. I’m reminded of the last good-by with my Mimmy and how both she and I knew that it was the end; this feels the same. I desperately hope that I’m wrong.

We’re creeping slowly towards the shadow of the Sears tower, the gridlock reminding me of the list of reasons we moved away from this city the first chance we got. On the other side Benjamin, our nephew, Hannah’s age, is waiting.

He called at 3:03 p.m. the very moment he got off the school bus, to find out where we were. We’re all itchy excited at the prospect of picking him up and taking him to Indiana with us for the weekend. He lived with us for a few years when he was tiny and the heart strings were so firmly tied that he still feels like the fifth musketeer and we miss him all the time.

I’m spending the time resting, writing a little bit, remembering all of the things I love best about a good long road trip and dreaming about what’s next. For just this moment I’m not feeling overwhelmed, over “Englished,” amazed by the changes (like the new penny… the whole country got a new penny while we were gone!) or exhausted by the mere prospect of what this first month back inevitably holds. For just this moment, we’re cruising down the road, motor humming steadily while the Bombay Dub Orchestra is providing the soothing soundtrack of life.