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FAITH AND
FAMILIARITY
GET US THROUGH THE LONG HAUL
Journal of Healing – Sept. 21, 2005
By Mary
Koch
Ten hours in the driver’s seat allows ample time for thought.
Long-haul truck drivers must be quite the philosophers. Except, of
course, for the one who cut me off by Keechelus Lake. And the one who
tried to eat my bumper on Blewett Pass.
We – my husband, his aide Marlenea and I – made the trip to
Pugetopolis last week to see a therapist and then back again all in one
day. I never used to think I could handle marathon jaunts like that, but
each one makes the next more do-able.
For one thing, the road has become oh so familiar. I wonder how
many hundreds of times I’ve driven that route since I moved more than
26 years ago from what my husband liked to call the “soggy climes”
of Puget Sound to sunny eastern Washington. One winter alone accounted
for several dozen trips along I-90 to SR 97 and home. Then back again to
Seattle where John was in rehabilitation after his stroke. Months of
lonely commuting and a lot of thinking.
My familiarity with this
route allows me to know which radio station will replace the one that
just faded out, which latte stands have the freshest coffee and which
restrooms are cleanest.
*
* *
TO KNOW the road is to feel secure. You know which curves will
require a brake and which ones will let you just float. You know how
soon the highway will straighten out so the vehicle tailing you can pass
– and you pray the driver will wait until then.
I drive at the speed
limit, no less, no more. I’d like to drive slower because every bump
and curve reverberates through John’s wheelchair, making the ride much
rougher for him. But if you drive below the speed limit, you have to
pull off to let traffic past, and getting to the side of the road means
even more jostling.
There are memories at almost every mile post, especially memories
from before the stroke. Here’s where we landed in a ditch one icy,
winter night. Two guys in a pickup truck stopped moments later, pulled
us out and refused any payment other than a “thank you.” Here’s
where we just missed hitting a deer one balmy summer evening. She was
nearly close enough to lick John’s elbow resting on the open window.
Memories include disastrous accidents that we’ve come across or
read about. On this trip we drove past remains of the massive rockslide
on Snoqualmie Pass and breathed a prayer for the grieving families of
three young women who had been killed there one day earlier. We had no
idea, and neither did the state highway officials, that in just a few
hours another 10-ton boulder would thunder onto the roadway.
Miraculously, no one was hurt in the second slide.
“Cheated death again,” John used to quip when we pulled into
the driveway after each trip.
*
* *
WE’RE ON THE last
leg of our journey now, and it’s late night. Behind every set of
headlights are thousands of pounds of steel, hurtling in our direction,
controlled by a total stranger. My life, my future and the safety of my
passengers depend entirely on our trust that the stranger is not drunk,
not suicidal and not about to doze off and veer into our lane.
It isn’t the three-dollar gasoline, the eight-cylinder engine
or the all-weather tires that carry us along the road. It’s our faith.
If you don’t believe
you’re a person of faith, just get behind the wheel of your car and
think about it for a while.
©
Mary Koch, Omak, Washington 2005
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