End of the taxi line

Twenty five years of being “Mom’s Taxi” ended with a spritz of suntan lotion and a wave, a backward glance and a promise to be home by six thirty for supper. Then I watched the Ford Escape pull off down the driveway, my sixteen year old son at the wheel, his driver’s license only two hours old, nary a scratch or a smudge on it. An afternoon at a friend’s swimming pool beckoned on this ninety degree day as a fine reward for getting a perfect score on his road test. To his credit—and mine—he stuck around long enough for me to get home from running errands to make sure he was basted in enough sunblock to keep from frying as he floated and gloated.

The metaphorical silence was eerie as I walked into the house and absorbed the fact that I could pick whatever task I wanted to do without calculating when I would have to interrupt it and make a taxi run.

I use the word “silence” loosely, since it’s never quiet in the country. The cicadas haven’t even arrived yet, but there are trucks rattling past on the nearby highway and the occasional emergency siren, crickets, dogs barking, owls hooting, goldfinches jostling for perch space and loudly doing the dozens on the thistle feeder below the living room window, an infinitesimally small warbler making outrageously loud chatters and chirps and streams of melody, warning others to stay away from that dead snag where she’s nesting. But there was a strange silence in my heart anyway.

A quarter century of my life has been spent behind the wheel of my car—first a sedan, then a station wagon, upgraded to a mini-van, and finally an SUV—driving my children to their destinations. From the first newborn, off to a well-baby checkup, anxiously awaiting a pediatrician’s imprimatur that indeed all was well and developmentally on track, to the sixteen year old delivered to the last morning final exam I would ever have to detour to the high school on the way to work, I have manned the wheel.

In mileage, I’ve circled the globe several times over. Girl Scout outings, summer camp, Little League, soccer tournaments, tennis meets, pole-vaulting competitions, school supply runs. Trips to the doctor, trips to the emergency room, trips to the bus stop, trips to the mall. The march of progress has been measured not only by the number of strategically concealed grey hairs on my head but by the tread on my tires and the price of gas.

I may have forgotten most of the details…though not the fact that some unnamed child once left a bag of potato chips in the mesh magazine rack behind the driver’s seat in my first Subaru and a mouse chewed a hole in the fabric to get to the goodies…but not the good feelings. Like many a taxi driver, I liked to keep the conversation rolling. And as sons and daughters got older and busier, it was during those five and ten minute stretches between pickups and drop-offs that connections stayed alive, politics got argued, venting got spilled, unfairness of every ilk was examined. On longer trips of several hours, silence often reigned as a teenager running on empty set the passenger seat back and settled in for much-needed nap, a fleece blanket wrapped around tired shoulders. I felt as much a flood of tenderness then as I did when I tucked them in to bed at night as babies.

I don’t do transitions well. Just ask the kids how I reacted to the idea of moving the living room furniture a few years ago. Stepping out of the car at the high school, Robert casually reminded me “Hey Ma, this is the last day you’ll have to do this!” Then the door shut and I was alone with my reverie and my sense of shock. I had been so focused on getting to work, my mind racing ahead to just how many minutes late I’d be arriving at the office, I hadn’t even marked the day. I pouted, deflated and sorrowed, for the rest of the ride.

Yes, I know I’m in the minority. Most mother’s I know have done a jig when their youngest children finally got their driver’s licenses. And yes, the closing of one chapter always means the beginning of another. I’m already looking ahead to new adventures—more travel, more time to write, more time to sit and think. I’m making new discoveries already—some in my garden, some from the back of a Harley.

But I won’t be retiring my “Mom’s Taxi” coffee mug from the kitchen cabinet any time soon. The memories it holds are too sweet.