The truck is home. And I'd rather not talk about it, thank you very much. Suffice it to say, a week in the shop isn't cheap and the final bill came to just about what the truck is worth. No, I'm not kidding. I'll be blogging soon, I'm sure, about mechanics, friendships, friendships with mechanics, and why it's not a good idea.

In the meantime, darling daughter was sick all week and started antibiotics for bronchitis on Wednesday. By Friday she was feeling better, but not great. She had RSVP'd her intentions to attend the wedding of a childhood friend on Saturday. A 5-6 hour drive, one way.

She was feeling much better by Saturday and could have made the drive by herself. But since she'd been sick, she didn't feel she could stay at a friend's home. And since she'd been sick, she didn't think she'd feel well enough to do all the driving by herself in a day.

Guess who got to go along as designated tag-team driver?

Yep.

Pros: Eleven hours in a car is a lot of time to talk. I got to see some beautiful country. I saw long time friends. I attended the wedding of a young woman I've known since she was four years old.

Con: Eleven hours in a car is a lot of time to talk. Eleven hours is a long time period.

She ended up feeling pretty good and she did all the driving down and over half the driving back. I took the last two hours. From 11 P.M. to 1 A.M. when we pulled into the driveway. I think since I got the two hardest hours, the driving turned out to be pretty even.

Spending the day with a precious daughter: Priceless.

Everyone wants to be able to come home again. I was reminded of this recently when our twenty-two year-old daughter called to say she was having a bad week and wanted to come home for visit. I thought all manner of horrible things had happened. So I questioned her: Had she lost her job? No. Did she have an argument with her “friend who’s a boy?” No. A part of me demanded to know, “what’s wrong?” But my mother’s heart was just glad she wanted to come home.
Her senior year in college, Amber moved out of the dorms and into an apartment with several other young women. Though sometimes the demands of classes, jobs, and making rent were burdensome, the roommates got along well and seemed content. After graduation she decided to keep her job and apartment and stay close to her friends. But now I wondered if she felt the need for a little less independence and a bit more parenting.
She arrived Friday evening and spent some time with a hometown friend before coming home. That night, Dad sat with her outside as they did some stargazing and talked. He told me later that she was fine, just discouraged about demands in “the real world.” A full time job pays the rent but it’s not much fun working when you need your earnings for the necessities, not just a social life. Her student loans were coming due, and she also needed to fund her own car insurance.
I spent time with her as well, questioning and probing for trouble spots. But her complaints were nothing needing major repairs, just some tune-ups. Life issues such as we all deal with from time to time. So we did what good parents do: we listened and encouraged. There was no magic wrench to fix her life, no special spark plug to make life exciting. Even if there was, she didn’t want us to repair her; she just wanted some tender loving care from Mom and Dad.
Her father asked me to buy some “comfort food.” When she left Sunday evening, all the food was still in the cupboard. What Amber really needed was a dose of encouragement. She hadn’t been home in several months and her “you can do it” tank had gotten dangerously low. She made it home just in time for a refill, before starting on the track of life for another lap. When she left, she seemed better, more able to cope and more positive about being able to deal with all the changes she was experiencing.
We’re grateful Amber sees her home as a refueling station, where she can be recharged and renewed and sent back into the race of life. Even if it’s occasional, it’s nice to know she still needs Mom and Dad.