My teenager doesn’t know, until I tell him, that he’s sitting behind the wheel of the car I drove while I was pregnant with him.
“This was your mom car?” he asks.
“My mini van.”
How could I know back then that I’d never trade up for a bigger vehicle? That no matter how hard we tried, there would never be a need to give up this beautiful thing with a sports car’s engine and sleek lines and roomy interior and leather seats, for something more practical and less appealing to the eye.
Yes, this car that protected and helped raise my baby has become my baby, too.
Just as we’ve taken care of “Bessie” (her name, because she’s been paid for for over a decade and was designed to never let us down)–to the point that mechanics who work on her try to make deals with us every time we take her in, because they want to buy and keep her for themselves–we’ve nurtured him, so we could reach this amazing moment and beyond.
“Stop pressing the invisible break, Mom.” He’s laughing at how tense I am as he prepares to take another lap around the neighborhood. “I’m not going to wreck the car.”
No matter how hard I try to relax, I can’t. But the need to hold on and slow things down isn’t about approaching stop signs and driving past the countless cars parked at the curb. Or the blind, uphill turns that oncoming traffic flocks to most while my boy drives by, slowly, but not as slowly as yesterday, because he’s getting the hang of this so quickly. Too quickly.
He doesn’t know that my fraying nerves have nothing to do with worrying about something happening to my precious Bessie.
Well, almost nothing.
Yes, this driving practice thing is hard for every parent.
But the panic I feel when he veers too close to mailboxes or speeds up when some well-intentioned but harried driver rides his bumper… None of it is invisible-break worthy.
Not even close.
He doesn’t know that I’m remembering the long drive in this car to the hospital, me in the passenger seat then, too, when I was in labor. Bringing him home three days later, the car seat was installed for the first time with him carefully strapped inside, and a new life was pushing us into an adventure we couldn’t fathom. The picture of a stork holding a baby in a blue blanket was waiting for us that day, staked into the front lawn right by where I park at the curb now, so he doesn’t have to pull out of the driveway yet. (more…)
