You only get so many sunsets sinking outside your door…
Can only make so many memories til’ you can’t make no more…
— Chris Janson
“Time goes by fast, son,” my dad said as he settled into the passenger seat of his car with me behind the wheel. He fumbled with the seatbelt, turned the air on to his liking, and adjusted the seat for maximum legroom. Good thing too, we’d be in the car 20 hours over just three days.
I had the privilege of driving Dad from Tennessee to Michigan to attend his friend’s funeral. “My Uber driver,” he said with a smile. The road trip was my idea. One I’ll never regret. I have a lot of friends who would do just about anything for the chance to spend even a few precious minutes with their parents.
Dad is 83.
Getting him to the funeral was important, but I had my own motives for road trippin’ with Pops. I wanted the time—uninterrupted by everyone and everything. I wanted to listen to his stories. I wanted to stir up his memories. I wanted a tour of his life. “Show me the houses you lived in, the places you played and worked,” I said. “Wherever you want to go. Whatever you want to see.”
So, after the funeral, on a picture-perfect, warmer-than-usual fall afternoon in Saginaw, Michigan, we set off on our adventure.
First stop: his father’s grave, then his mother’s. They’re separated by many miles just as they were in life. He touched their headstones. I stepped back.
No words.
Dad was raised by a single mother in poverty I’ve never known and can hardly imagine. “She did what she had to do to survive,” he told me. “Five boys to take care of.” He stepped a few feet away from her resting place to stand by his own. His and Mom’s headstone is already in place. “The clock’s ticking,” he said. “You start dying the moment you’re born.” Then, with the same optimistic grin I inherited from him, he added, “But the doc says I’ll make it to 90.”
We both wanted to see my childhood home Mom and Dad had built in 1976. We were just going to drive by it, but I saw some people in the backyard so I pulled into the driveway. Next thing we knew, we were getting an unplanned tour by the nice people who live there now. I was a fifth-grader when we moved there. Being inside the house again was surreal. Gone are the orange kitchen countertops, the trash compactor, the shag carpet and the gray paneling. But my eyes saw everything as it was. Tramp, my big sheepdog, was still sleeping in the hallway. The heavy, 80s-style wine barrel chairs were still in the family room. VCR tapes were still stacked on the TV, and the World Premiere of Michael Jackson’s Thriller was on MTV.
I ran up the stairs to my old room. The railing still makes the same clicking sound it did then. It’s a boring guest room now. But I saw my Tyco racetrack on the floor, my jam box on my desk, and the 13” TV I watched the Tigers win the World Series on. I probably overstayed my welcome, but I didn’t care. This is where some of the earliest chapters of my story were written—the happiness and the heartbreaks. It’s the house that built me.
But the day was getting away, so I thanked our unsuspecting hosts, and made my way through my old backyard toward the car. I stopped for just a second longer and I took a deep breath of the fresh fall air. And as leaves fell all around me like pieces into place, I saw the 12-year-old me tossing a baseball in the air and catching it with his glove. “Harding makes a sensational grab!” said the kid in his high-pitched voice.
One more deep breath and a turn of the page.
Dad and I had a nice look back. “To more adventures!” We raised our glasses and toasted at the end of our long day. And as we flip the pages forward, we find there’s much more to write, and the stories ahead of us are just as important as the ones behind us.
“If I haven’t said it yet, son. Thank you.”
No, Dad. Thank you.
All the money in the world can’t buy more time to spend. This was time with my dad—time with my friend.
