Travel

I am on my way to Minnesota to visit my mom. I have not seen her since Colby passed, so it will be an emotional trip. Colby and I made this trip several times a year, every year, and we had developed "regular" stops, regular routines. I take care not to follow any of that and make this trip as different as possible. Otherwise it will be too painful. I didn't pack any of the red licorice, beef jerky or sports drinks I usually bring. Didn't bring any of the CDs we usually listen to.

I stop in Clarksville for gas. Five older men are outside, drinking coffee. After I stick my debit card in the gas pump they all come ambling over. "Whatcha got there in the back of your truck?" one asks. I look where he is pointing. Tucked in a plastic garden tub is an old, metal washbasin of my grandmother's. My mom uses it for gardening and she and Colby filled it with plants as a gift for me from her garden the last time Colby and I visited. That was less than two months ago. "It's a washtub," I say. "No, no it ain't," another says. "That there, that there's a ham boiler, 'cept they usually have a roll of copper on the top." I explain again that this has been a gardening or wash tub for the past 60 or so years. "Where'd y'all get it?" he asks. I tell him the tub is originally from either Wisconsin or Minnesota. "Well then, that just' 'bout explains it," he said knowingly. "Don't no one up there know how to cook ham." A third man jumps in. "If you got a top for it, I might give ya 40 dollars for it," he says. I tell them I've never seen a top for it and it is a family heirloom; I wouldn't sell it for four hundred dollars. They shake their heads at my stupidity and amble off. I think how Colby and I would have chuckled over the exchange for miles. I miss him so.

I point the truck toward Minnesota and purposefully keep the radio dial away from the station we always listen to in south central Illinois. I intentionally do not stop at the gas station in Bloomington, Illinois that we always stop at. I make sure I am well occupied on the phone during the stretch that Colby always drove. So many memories that I can't bear to experience now, but also can't let go of. As other grieving parents from my support group have said, it is so very hard for anyone other than another grieving parent to understand that this is an every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year existence that you never get over or past, you just learn to live with it. This grief never ends, it never goes away, but it does evolve. Maybe the next trip, or the trip after that, I will stop in Bloomington. We'll see.