looking through me

Category: 31 Days: Family

October 17, 2014

backseat road trips

Family vacations were driving affairs. In the backseat of the station wagon, and later the back two seats of the minivan, my brothers and I planned our own road trip. We worked at it for years.

Our epic drive would occur the summer after I finished high school. I would be 17, the middle 19 and the eldest 21. The middle would own a truck by then, and that would be our transportation.

We mapped out every detail. We knew each highway and even calculated in gas mileage (well, the brothers did; I contributed more to the potential snack list).

To save money and time, we would drive straight through rotating drivers: California to Michigan.

The destination was the given. We were heading for Grandma’s roots. We wanted to see the farm where she grew up. Knowing all that remained standing was the chicken coop did not discourage us. Stories of the farm were so ingrained in us our imaginations would be able to fill in all the details.

We dreamt about our adventure: the relatives we would meet, the places we would see, who would drive which legs of the trip, the places we would or wouldn’t stop along the way. It was so real we could taste it.

Mom and Dad let us dream. They raised a few financial flags from the front seat but nothing we couldn’t solve with a few more hours of daydreaming while playing the license plate game.

Our trip never materialized. These strange things called work and college got in the way. But two of the three of us made separate Michigan pilgrimages with even better company: Grandma.

 

This post is part of the 31 Days: Family series. Read the beginning, and see a full index of posts, here.

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October 16, 2014

the long walk

Summer camp.

I looked forward to camp for years. Once the eldest started, I wanted to go. And when it was the middle’s turn I became downright antsy—for two years—until I could go, too.

The summer before sixth grade, camp was amazing. I slept in a covered wagon. My team won the competition, though rain prevented us from sleeping in the fort to celebrate. I went rappelling. But on the morning it was time to leave we waited and waited and waited. We waited some more. No bus.

By that point I was done with camp. It’s not that I wanted to go home. I wanted my brothers. The middle was in the junior high camp and the eldest was in the high school camp. I hadn’t seen them in almost a week. I was beside myself with sibling withdrawal.

Then a few people approached our camp on foot. One of them was the eldest! I took off running. He knelt in the road and I ran straight into his arms. And I didn’t let go. So he stood up still holding me, and as they explained whatever the issue was with the bus, I wrapped myself tighter around him.

It didn’t occur to me as all the rest of the fourth, fifth and sixth graders started trudging along behind our high school chaperones that there was anything odd about the fact the eldest was still carrying me.

At the time the distance seemed enormous. Now I know the camps were only a half-mile apart, but it didn’t matter—he carried me the whole way.

 

This post is part of the 31 Days: Family series. Read the beginning, and see a full index of posts, here.

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