A Holy Kaleidoscope

“Hit the deck!” I shouted.
Hanna and Peter would dive to the floor of the backseat. Hit the Deck was the name of the game we played while driving, a pitiful substitute safety measure for an old car with no seat belts. The kids had to stay put until Grandma or I called, “All clear.” We practiced and practiced. Who got to the floor first might have been important, but the laughter that followed was always the best part. They never tired of the drill; we played it endlessly. Practice even included rude awakenings from a nap to scurry like little soldiers into their foxholes. Not so much laughter then, but even at their tender young ages, they understood that the underlying reason for the drill was serious stuff on the lengthiest road trip of their lives.
Icy roads stretched 1,093 miles over the course of our 1,700-mile trip from Erie to Albuquerque in January 1975. Two-thirds of the journey was terrifying. The ice storm just ahead of us was slow-moving, but we were even slower. The we on the journey included Mom, Hanna, Peter, and me. Hanna was six, Peter was four, and Mom was sixty. I did the driving. I would turn thirty later that year if we survived.
We were driving my grandmother’s huge 1960 Oldsmobile 98 with “summer slick” tires and no seat belts. By the end of the trip, the kids had learned to count to higher numbers than they knew when we started. They made a game of counting the accidents we had passed. The journey took a week; we moved in the same direction as the storm.
Mom and I spoke in hushed tones about the incredible dangers we were experiencing. Fears of continuing such an undertaking bored even deeper into our unspoken emotions with each accident we came upon. The accidents we narrowly missed sent us into our own quiet nightmare of a drastically altered life or one that ended. These fears of disaster were best never voiced in the presence of young children.
My eyes were riveted to the pavement just ahead, frantically searching for a tire track, grain of sand, or snow that had not yet turned to ice. Hands welded to the steering wheel, I strained to sense every subtle movement of the car, especially when the car expressed its own directional preference. My driving effort was so intense, so focused that Mom had to read highway signs for us. Taking my eyes off the road surface for even a few seconds was foolish. But turning back would have been even more foolhardy.
The precipitation continually alternated between snow, freezing rain, and sleet. Short days in early January meant we had to make the most of our limited drive window―dawn to dusk at a maximum speed of thirty miles per hour. We saw very little of sanded or salted roads. Evidently, most counties/cities had pretty much emptied their stores of sand due to abnormally early winter snowfall. Nothing was in our favor! Except the scenery left by all forms of frozen moisture.
As an artist, my eyes naturally frame paintings and photos in the imagery I experience. When we were able to stop driving, the entire world was a magnet of visual hype for me. Nothing escaped the ice. The detail of countless tiny fragile ice crystals coupled with the soft snowy fields holding ice-laden trees painted the message of perfect peace in the midst of chaos. Small towns emerged from sparkling tree-lined avenues, looking like Norman Rockwell had already been there.
Such storybook places to live spoke volumes of hope to a seriously damaged heart. All the clean white snow, the artistry, the newness of the imagery sparked an electric current of awareness deep within—making me profoundly grateful to be alive on a new day. At some level, I grasped that God had put together all the beauty I could see. Intuitively and intrinsically, I understood that something or someone was protecting us. Considerable time would pass before I knew the sovereignty in the hand behind it all.
I didn’t know my mother very well, at least not as an adult. Mom had the unique ability to make everyone feel genuinely welcome. And each person was made to feel like they were very special. Her cooking was her hallmark, no doubt, but she went way beyond food. If cooking was the trademark for Mom’s hospitality, then friendship was her language of love. Mom and Dad had lived in many places, but in every place they’d lived, they’d made friends. The amazing part was they kept the friends in spite of the distances that resulted with each move. Friendship to them was not a casual thing. They invested time and heart, Dad in his way, Mom in hers—they formed an impressive friendship force. I often wished our family worked as well as their friendships.
Seven intense days in the car with her was definitely the longest and most meaningful adult time we had spent together. She didn’t really know me very well either. As adults, we had a long-distance relationship that spanned multiple moves on my parents’ part and ours. I had been just twenty years old—in my junior year of a fine arts degree program in Columbus, Ohio—when Blake and I had married. Three days later, my parents had moved to Paris, France. Over the next nine years, they had moved six times, and Blake and I had moved three times. Boeing was responsible for all of my parents’ moves. The reasons for our moves were more complicated; this would be my fourth move in nine years.
Until a few weeks earlier, my parents didn’t even know their daughter’s marriage was in grave trouble. I was the only one of their three kids who had not divorced. Each time we connected by phone, Mom would iterate how thankful she was that one of their kids remained stable and married. I didn’t have the heart to tell her otherwise. Disappointing my parents probably contributed to my stalling a decision to leave an especially abusive situation. The phone call they received saying my marriage was in trouble was news that broke their hearts.