One Last Road Trip: A Semi-Biographical Story of Grief

“Are you sure you want to do this alone?” my husband asked for the millionth time.

“I’m fine," I assured him. “I’ve made the drive before. The car is in good shape. And, you can track me in the app. If you find me in Georgia instead of New York, you’ll know something has gone terribly wrong.” Checking the cargo space of my SUV, I made sure I had everything I needed. “And my brother’s going to meet me there to drop everything off.”

My husband grabbed me in a tight embrace. I looked up at him and smiled. Thirty years together, we have become each other's center, our shelter from the storm. Being apart wasn’t fun for either of us, but sometimes it was necessary.

I needed to do this alone.

My father died nearly three years ago, leaving me to handle his estate. Everything had been done except for one thing. Over the years of his career, my father had amassed a collection of memorabilia of a bygone era, a time when labor unions were plentiful and powerful. The union he worked for had faded into memory - representing a dying industry necessitated merger upon merger until it was something completely different.

The footlocker in the back of the car contained what remained, packed carefully for transportation back to where my father’s life began, upstate New York. After months of looking, I found a university library that housed a collection of materials from my dad’s union. They agreed to preserve Dad’s legacy.

Kissing my husband one last time, I got in the car with promises of calling whenever I stopped. Checking my mirrors, I pulled out of my Midwest driveway to begin the sixteen hour trek back east.

Day one passed without incident. An easy nine hours of driving, helped along at times with loud music and caffeine. A somewhat restful night in a sparse but clean motel outside of Mansfield, OH and I was ready for the final leg of the trip.

Everything was going smoothly on the second day until I hit the Pennsylvania/New York state line by Lake Erie. The dulcet tones of Rufus Wainwright were rudely interrupted by a loud “Bang!”. As soon as I could, I pulled off into a rest stop parking lot to check the car for damage. Walking around, kicking the tires and looking under the car, I didn’t see anything. I assumed it was just something on the road.

I got back into the car, convinced that everything was normal..

“Do you need to check the tire pressure?” a voice next to me asked.

Jumping, I turned to see my father sitting in the passenger seat.

When I say my father, I don’t mean a ghost. I mean my father, in the flesh. His wispy white hair was blown around by the air conditioner. The glasses we buried him in sat perched on his nose, slightly askew. His beard was neatly trimmed and his complexion was tinged pink, his Irish skin showing the effects of a few minutes in the summer sun. He was dressed in his summer uniform - his humorous “Sylvan Beach University” shirt which actually depicted the waste water treatment plant, cargo shorts, New Balance sneakers and black socks.

I blinked behind my darkened glasses, waiting for the vision before me to dissipate. When it didn’t, I slowly removed them, hoping that would put reality back into focus. It didn’t.

“I’m losing my mind,” I muttered.

“Why would you say that kiddo?” he asked.

Putting my glasses back on and checking the mirrors, I pulled out of my parking spot. “Because you are dead and buried in a veterans cemetery in St. Louis.”

Dad gently placed his hand on my arm and my breath hitched. It was warm, his slender fingers falling exactly where they had when he was teaching me how to drive and wanted me to calm down. “Not for the next few hours ”he said softly, trying not to freak me out any more than I already was. “I guess we needed one last road trip.”

Tears filled my eyes as memories of those trips flooded my mind. Good trips, where he played Stan Freeburg tapes, annoying our mother, and feeding my brothers and I all kinds of snacks we only got at truck stops. Bad trips, like the one when we had an accident that we were lucky to walk away from but lost our dog. These memories were part of the fabric of my being.

I swerved into the last row of spots before I tried to make my way back onto the thruway and threw the car into park. Taking a deep breath, I turned to face him. “Is it really you Dad?”

He nodded and I released my seat belt, crawling over the armrest into his open arms. It was the hug I missed so much. It was my dad.

“Missed you too kiddo” he said, kissing the top of my head. “Well, I’ve been around, just not in the way I used to be.”

Moving back behind the wheel, I grabbed a napkin from the console and blew my nose. “How?” I asked.

“Not sure. It was something to do with that box” he said, gesturing to the foot locker. “You started packing that and I was able to get closer. I was in the car this whole time, but crossing into New York triggered something. Let’s not question it, okay? I don’t know how long I get to be here. Besides, your brother is already on his way to meet you.”

Nodding, I started the car and eased my way to the on-ramp. “Wait, did you ‘appear’ to my brothers first?” That sibling rivalry that never seemed to go away reared its ugly head.

Dad laughed. “Not yet. Don’t know if I can. I do wish I had your grandfather’s thorn stick occasionally to knock some sense into the two of them.”

Reaching over, Dad scanned through the radio stations until he found the Beatles channel. “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was just starting. Dad smiled and bobbed his head along with the beat. A memory of him preparing pork steaks to put on the grill, while this song played on the old silver radio in the kitchen in our old house in Crestwood, flashed in my mind.

“I played you the final ‘new’ Beatles song that last day in the hospital” I told him.

“I remember,” he said wistfully. “I heard all of it sweetie. Even ‘Fairytale of New York’.”

I cringed. “Sorry that was the last song you heard. If I had known, it would have been something happier.”

“Nonsense” he said with a wave of his hand. “The Pogues were the perfect send off.”

Looking in the cooler bag at his feet, Dad saw an open package of beef jerky, the brand he used to buy us. Grabbing it, he tore off a piece, taking a bite and chewing it slowly. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as his jaw moved. When he swallowed, I saw the movement of his throat. All I could think was “He’s really here.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes as the scenery rushed by. There were so many things I had thought about asking him since he died, but it was all jumbled up at the moment. I didn’t know where to start.

“I can hear you over thinking,” my father finally said.

“Sorry, I just wasn’t prepared for this.”

“Me either,” he laughed.

“Were they all there?” I finally asked, my voice timid. I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear whether my beliefs about what happened after we die might be wrong.

Dad smiled and nodded. “Even Lady.”

I gulped and held back a sob. Lady was the dog we lost in that horrible car wreck almost 35 years ago. Even near the end, in the ICU, Dad teared up talking about her. He always thought if he had just called for her she wouldn’t have run across the Massachusetts Turnpike and she would have lived. All these years later, he still blamed himself for losing her. That she was there, along with all of the family and friends who had passed before him, greeting him when he passed over, was so wonderful to hear.

“Irving Gowanda!” he suddenly exclaimed as we passed the sign for Exit 57A. “I never did write that book.” Dad always joked he was going to write the great American novel and name all the characters using interstate exit signs. Even today in my 50s, I thought of that every time I saw an interesting combination of town names on a sign.

“You should write it” he suggested, bumping my shoulder, “now that you’re a published author.”

My eyes opened wide with horror. It never occurred to me that my deceased father would know about my hobby - self publishing smutty romance books.

Noticing the change in my demeanor, Dad laughed so hard tears started to stream down his face. “Don’t worry. I stop reading when people take their clothes off” he choked out while grabbing a napkin from the stack in the console.

Once his giggles stopped, he continued his thought. “You could write it. You always were good with words. I remember all those sports columns you wrote for the high school paper and the research papers you did in college. And the non-dirty stuff you write now is pretty good.”

My cheeks had finally stopped burning, so I looked over to him. The “Proud Dad” look he got any time I achieved something was exactly the same as I remembered. “Maybe I’ll give it a shot.”

Again we fell into an awkward silence.

“I know you were mad at me,” he finally said.

Sighing, I nodded. For a brief time after he passed, I was angry. Therapy helped change that. “I don’t know if mad is the right word. It just felt like you gave up. You chose to leave us. I could deal with a lot, but you deciding to go was hard.”

“That’s not the case at all. Please know that. We all knew the likelihood of things improving was almost non-existent. My time was up. I knew that.”

“Did you know you were going to die on Pearl Harbor Day? Is that why you told that nurse you were looking forward to December 7th?” It was a weird coincidence that my brothers and I found funny.

Dad thought about it for a moment. “I had an inkling. Something in me said that was the day.”

I remembered walking into his hospital room that morning. One of my brothers had taken the night shift so I could get some sleep. Looking at the whiteboard on the wall, the nurse had written the date. December 7, 2023. When I saw that, I looked at my brother and said “Oh shit! If he dies today…” and started to laugh.

“I’m really proud of the way you handled everything. The hospital, my decisions, the funeral, the trust. I don’t think I realized how much I was asking you to do. But you rose to the occasion. And I know there were moments you wanted to go against it, but you never did.”

Again, my eyes started to fill with tears.I believed in my father’s right to finish his life the way he saw fit, but that didn’t mean I didn’t second guess his decisions. “I did have a few moments where I thought ‘This is too hard’ or 'Maybe I should change course’ but I knew I owed it to you to see it through. And everyone involved with the estate got along and wanted to honor your wishes. That part was a lot easier than I anticipated.”

“You did everything that needed to be done. Everything was exactly what I wanted. Putting you in charge was the right decision.”

After that, we just enjoyed each other's company, sometimes just sitting in each other's presence. It reminded me of the nights I spent with him the last few months of his life when I would drive up to take him to appointments or help him with things around the house. The two of us would sit on the couch watching the British mystery shows he favored. After he died I was so glad to have those memories.

Pulling off the thruway, I noticed Dad grew paler.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“I think I’m getting close to my off ramp” he responded sadly.

“No!” I yelled. “I haven’t delivered the trunk. And my brother, he’s waiting. And we haven’t…” I trailed off, tears blurring my vision again.

Dad placed his hand over mine. Already, it felt lighter, cooler. “We got this. I’m not going to question it or fight it. Hopefully, someday I can have a moment with your brothers. But I think it was right that I got to do this with my first born.”

“Daddy…” I choked out, blinking back the tears.

“Shush, sweetheart. Be happy. You are everything I hoped you would be and more. I am endlessly proud of you and the life you have made for yourself.”

I heard the seat belt disengage and the bell start dinging. I couldn’t look over. Ahead of me was the hotel where I was meeting my brother. I could see his truck in the parking lot.

My father leaned over and placed a kiss on my cheek. I felt the soft bristles of his beard against my skin one last time. “I love you” he said softly. “You did good.”

Pulling into the parking lot, I finally looked over to the passenger seat. All that remained was a crumpled napkin and the empty bag of beef jerky.

A knock on the window elicited a small yelp from me. Outside stood my brother, a look of concern on his face. “Why are you crying?” he asked when I rolled down the window.

“Just talking to Dad,” I sniffed.