Driving with my husband

Another child has flown the coop. Well, sort of. My child is traveling alone across country by plane, and will connect to another flight in an airport I’ve never been to. It has been a learning experience pointing out the stuff parents have done in advance for previous trips. A number of small significant items were left on the table as this child dashed out the door early this morning. Another child drove up and carried them away, two hours away, because it’s cheaper to fly from Indy than from Fort Wayne.

I prefer not to get up before dawn, so I was grateful to give the driving to a willing child. One of my older children loves driving; she even volunteered for it! The family rule is that the driver gets to control the music. She also loves having her tunes playing.

My husband enjoyed driving. At least, he didn’t mind it. For many years our standard plan was to drive several hours east to visit his family one year. The next year we would drive three days west to visit my family. This alternating pattern continued up until his death. We got to know the flat lands of Nebraska and the tree-filled hills of Pennsylvania really well.

I don’t like traveling. I got motion sick up until I learned to drive. When driving I don’t feel it, which is a blessing. My husband’s mother didn’t ever learn to drive; her husband and then her sons drove her everywhere she couldn’t walk. She walked to work at the school, she walked to church, she walked to the store. She got a ride to anywhere she’d have to carry a lot home: the Salvation Army store, Goodwill, Giant Eagle grocery store.

When my husband and I married, we were in Utah. If we went somewhere together, he drove. I was fine with that. But I drove to work, to the store, to church, to appointments and interviews all the time. He worked full time an hour away; there was public transportation, so he took it.

Our first child was born there, but when he was a month old we moved to a small town in Pennsylvania. We had one car; my husband took it to work except when I had an appointment. Then I drove him back and forth so I’d have the car. Nine months later I totaled the car and we moved in with his parents.

They gave us a car for him to drive to work, and my father-in-law drove me to appointments. After six months we moved into my husband’s grandmother’s house, which was vacant, and we took turns using the car again. During all this time he drove whenever we were together, and I didn’t think anything of it.

Finally we reached financial stability enough to drive six hours away to the temple, and I was not exhausted… about the time our third child was a year old. Before that we attended the temple once or twice a year, on our anniversary, but I was always pumping milk or sleeping on the way. This time my husband drove, and drove, and drove… and I was awake, alert, willing and able to drive. He made the logical assumption, that he would be driving for six hours, with one or two stops to pee. I objected!

I wanted to drive. I was more than capable; by then I was routinely driving all three children to and from doctor’s appointments every month or so, plus trips to the grocery store and to Grandma’s house. My husband had to practically rewire his brain to let go of the steering wheel, he was so used to driving us both. Logically he knew I could drive safely. Intellectually he had nothing against me driving. But letting go and being driven, without controlling the car, was hard for him. He tried not to act like a backseat driver, but he was really nervous that first time. Besides wanting to drive, I had pried the car away from him because he was nodding off, weaving on the road, trying to stay awake. So he was tired and uneasy at the same time!

Well, we made it there and back. In future trips he started asking me if I wanted to drive, and I answered honestly. Often we talked over who felt the most awake and who wanted to drive through the toughest traffic. He took over the difficult Chicago traffic and I took the flats of Nebraska. We tried to be considerate of each other.

Oh how I wish he were here to drive me.