Our sweet daughter heads back to college on this bright, sunny Monday. The trip takes only 3 1/2 hours, and the temperature is in the low 20s, warmer than it’s been in two weeks. The forecast says no snowstorms, but she’s going northwest, to the snowiest part of our very snowy state.
My head says she’ll have a safe drive, but my crazy side is determined to worry. Anne can’t leave until mid-afternoon, after a doctor’s appointment which was rescheduled courtesy of last week’s blizzard. I keep thinking of black ice, the snow piles that make every intersection a blind one, and of driving on the worst roads after sunset. And when those worries run out, the memory of Anne’s pre-Christmas trip to Wisconsin with her fiance plagues me. I can’t stop thinking about the bad weather that forced them to spend the night in the car at an I-90 rest stop near Rochester, Minnesota.
Then I remember the years after college when Hiram and I drove from South Dakota to my parents’ home in northwest Iowa for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Bad weather accompanied every 12 1/2 hour trip we made. We didn’t have cell phones, and pay phones were few and far between, so the rellies didn’t get many updates. More than once we spent unexpected nights in hotels. I recall one return trip when the temperature started at -20 in Iowa, and never rose a degree. The heater in our VW Rabbit couldn’t keep up, and we shivered our way across the state of South Dakota.
Our travels almost drove my mother, one of the champion worries of all time, crazy. And her worry almost drove me crazy. But Hiram and I needed to drive into the unknown. By doing so we became adults, learning how to face challenges, assess risks, and solve problems. My daughter deserves the same opportunity.
So when it’s time for Anne to leave today, I’ll suck up my worries so I don’t make her crazy. I’ll hug her good-bye, have faith in her ability to overcome the unknown, and remind her to call when she arrives.
You can do this on your own, daughter. I know you can.
