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“The best music a parent will ever hear is the sound of his or her children laughing.”
— Unknown
“My daughter got her driver’s license, and I never see her anymore.”
This casual comment coming at the coffee- club gathering last week hit close to home. Being one of the group’s senior members allows me to offer firsthand experience and valuable advice completely free of charge.
“Yep,” I said. “But don’t’ worry. It gets worse. Wait until she takes her first road trip, then starts giving you directions on how to get somewhere.”
“They really do that?” he asked.
“Oh yeah, I remember the time some years ago when Robin was giving me directions to the country church where her upcoming wedding was to take place,” I said.
“Robin was directionally challenged at first,” I added. “While riding with her during learner’s permit days, I let her drive five miles one day before she noticed she was going the wrong way. She did not laugh. I suggested some lessons are better learned when allowed to resolve your mistakes without help — even when your little brother is laughing from the back seat.”
With that, I shared an old analogy about how raising children is like flying a kite. We work diligently, running tirelessly to get the kite airborne. Then, once it’s f lying a little, letting the wind take it up, we use the string to pull back when obstacles threaten and letting it out again as winds lift it clear. Then, one day, when it’s flying high and ready to plot its own course, you have to let the string go.
Your job is done. Just like kids.
Teaching a child to drive is one of those alternately “pulling and letting out more string experiences,” I said. “For them, it’s an adventure. For parents, it’s another gray hair. Or three.”
I also shared the first time Robin struck out on a cross-country trip with her new driver’s license, traveling more than 300 miles from the Hill Country to northeast Texas in a new car with her younger brother, Lee.
And a dog. With my children gathered around the dining room table the morning of the journey, I announced, “Here’s your mission, your map and your instructions. Lee, pay attention so you can help your sister.”
GPS for cars was yet to be discovered. For this trip, I unfolded my most trusted navigational device: A Texaco road map.
They watched me draw a dark, heavy line along the intended route.
“Now here’s where you might have problems,” I said, carefully detailing the loop around Taylor, turns to navigate at Hearne and other opportunities for getting lost.
“Any questions?” I asked, drawing a deep breath while I remembered Robin’s directional instincts.
Lee raised his hand. “Can ‘Buggie’ go with us?”
“Were you paying attention to the highway changes?” I asked, while adding instructions for traveling with a dog.
“Yes,” they both said with a laugh.
“I’ll follow you for a while, until your first major turn.”
Down the driveway, they went. I followed and I prayed.
Arriving at the first highway change in New Braunfels, a convenience store parking lot provided for one last round of “bye” hugs and wishes for safe travels.
I felt good about the trip, until I watched Robin leave the parking lot without hesitation. To the left, when she should have turned right.
“No,” I said out loud to myself.
Evidently, Lee or the dog must have said the same thing. Brake lights came on, Robin turned into a parking lot, circled through it, and re-entered the highway, this time going in the right direction.
The kids waved and smiled as they passed in front of me. I’ll never forget the look of terror on Buggie’s face in the back window. My confidence of scant moments ago was a warning. I was still praying and feeling sorry for the dog.
What was to have been a 300-mile trip probably took 500 miles or more. They never told me. I never asked.
Prayer s were answered, however, when they called to let me know they had arrived safely. They were laughing, and that’s all that mattered.
“ I remi nded my daughter of that trip a few years later as she was giving me travel directions to that country church,” I concluded during my coffee-drinking confab last week. “They probably made that trip better than I handled my trip to her wedding.”
I remembered again that journey to her nuptials.
“Oh, I know I’ll find the church all right,” I had told her at the time. “Just allow me one wrong turn. I won’t have the dog to help me.”
She laughed. —Contact Aldridge at leonaldridge@gmail. com. Other Aldridge columns are archived at leonaldridge.com
