Changing of the Drivers

A goal that I have in blogging is so that someday our sons might have a record/memories of some of the events in my own life that had an affect on me. The following is one of these:

It was the day before Thanksgiving l975 and I was a tired, discouraged, medical student at the Univ. of Kansas School of Medicine in Kansas City. I didn't have a car and lived in a small dorm room on the medical center campus. A day before, K.C. had a significant snow storm. The medical student that I usually got rides with didn't want to drive back to the Abilene area (which I understood) and decided to spend Thanksgiving in K.C. I called my parents to state that I didn't have a ride home. I'll never forget my dad immediately saying, "I"ll Come Get You!" (Oh, how good those words sounded and tears still come to my eyes thinking about it.) I had an idea about when he might arrive that night so I started looking out my dorm window. After a while, I could make out the headlights of their l965 Ford rounding the corner by our dorm. My dad and I were so happy to see each other! He said. "Your mother would have come, too, but as soon as she got finished teaching school, she got groceries and headed home to start getting the Thanksgiving meal for tomorrow ready." He told me that before he left Abilene for the l50 mile trip to K.C. he stoped at Holt Motor so they could put chains on the tires. I still remember that night--he pulled back onto I-70 to head for home! My dad had come for me; the car was so warm; and I had the best driver in the world to get me home. (And he did!)

Fast forward 25 years to 2000. My dad is now elderly and having health challenges. He had just recently been dismissed from the hospital and was still quite weak. It was time for his eye appt. in K.C. with an ophthalmologist who had been caring for him for many years. I picked my folks up at their Assisted Living Apt. in Abilene and we headed for K.C. We had his wheel chair in the back of our van. As we were returning from K.C. to Abilene, my dad was so weak that he would keep leaning toward me and I would keep pushing him back up. As we were heading home along I-70, I thought how much had changed--now I was the driver and he was the passenger. This man who was so skilled and had gotten me home in a bad blizzard, now needed me, just as I so needed him.

The older I get the more I realize how so much in life comes "Full Circle". As two of our sons are now driving, I will more and more, once again, be the passenger. But, I will always treasure the memory of being the passenger when my dad went through a bad snowstorm to get me home for Thanksgiving.