To know my father is to know how important driving an automobile is to him. He is seldom more “at home” than when he’s behind the wheel—which is precisely, of course, when he is not at home! There is something spiritual in the synergy of the man, the car and the road that elevates his spirits and centers him in himself.
So when I got off the train, and as we loaded my bags into the back of his car, and I offered to drive to the Lake, I wasn’t surprised when he said, “No, I’ll drive. I know where I’m going.” And yes, he usually does. But he would also drive even if he didn’t know where he was going!
The drive up to the Lake let me know how well my father was doing. We see each other once a year now. I carry these memories of my father’s basic condition through the intervening year. This is base-line data gathering. And since his driving is his métier, his most comfortable environment, this is the ideal setting to see him at his best.
My Dad’s driving gave me little cause for concern. At no point did I feel that we were going to careen suddenly off the road, and out into the woods or over into the valley! His speed was what it always is—heck, what mine always is!—just a tad too fast for conditions. But that’s OK—his Odyssey has airbags!
His confidence behind the wheel is the best measure of his confidence in himself. So when he asked me to drive yesterday after his fall, he in effect told me how he was. And when he told me to drive us to dinner, I knew he had not fully recovered confidence in himself. Today he simply took the wheel and got us to and from the grocery store. If he’s not yet his “old self” again, he’s at least feeling more like it.
Of increasing significance is why he drives. He drives for therapy. He drives to grieve the loss of my mother. He is a driving Descartes: I drive, therefore I am. Not just around the block, either: He drives to the Jersey shore if need be! Some days he needs more healing than others…
None of this matters all that much in itself; what matters is what it portends for the future. What will happen when the day comes that Dad is told he is not to drive? I fear for him for that day. My Dad has made it, quite likely, as long as he has because his major strength in life is a kind of stubbornness. He got it from his mother, but he has parlayed stubbornness into a fine art!
My Dad exhibits a stubborn refusal to change. Oh, life and its circumstances change around him, and he adjusts all right to them. He is not delusional in his stubbornness. He knows his wife of 64 years, the most wonderful woman in the world, has died. He’s not in denial.
What he is deep into is stubbornness: he will drive until they pry the keys from his hand! THE most frightening event in his recent life was not when he woke from a nap with a non-functioning right hand and waited overnight to call for an ambulance so he could be examined at the hospital. No, the most frightening event was needing to have his driver’s license renewed—a procedure that required a note from his eye doctor about his vision, and a driver’s test. He passed the whole procedure with flying colors, and thus got a new lease on life.
For the moment, we (his children and the rest of the world) can breathe easy. He’s still a good driver. Will he ever know when he is not a good driver? Maybe not. As it is, he sits uneasily in the passenger seat, even when he consents to be driven. There is a car commercial that says something to the effect of: “In life, some of us are passengers, others of us are drivers.” My Dad is a driver; he does not handle being driven well.
In this regard, there is a verse in John’s Gospel that suggests my father to me whenever I hear it. To paraphrase, Jesus tells us that, whereas at the moment we are able to get up every morning and put our clothes on and go about our days as we choose, the day is coming when someone else will get us up, will put our clothes on us, and will take us where they want us to go!
That day is coming for me, I know. That day is coming for my Dad, too. I dread it more for him than I do for myself, frankly.
Of course, he could always surprise me! I’m always glad to be surprised…
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