A Round Trip Journey

It usually starts when we are about 14 or 15 years old. Impatience ignites the flames of independence and we can't wait for the tethers of parental restraint to burn through. For some, it is a smoldering fire. For others it becomes a raging inferno. It is a constant pulse of every generation, our footsteps marching us forward under the baton of our spokespersons. From Elvis and Jerry Lee, the baton has passed through The Beatles and Dylan to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Van Halen and Skynard to Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Alanis to Alicia. Run DMC and Tupak to 50 Cent and Little John. Many times our parents become the symbol of the oppression we feel as we journey toward adulthood and real independence. Riding the emotional railroad through the Bi-Polar Mountains of unbridled joy and utter despair, we find companionship and shared bitterness with our peers and the deepest of despondencies over the unfairness of it all, the uniqueness of our individual lot and the hapless adults we find surrounding us.
So it was with my father and me. I felt as though I hated him for those years. The apex of the struggle came when I was about 15. I was old enough to know I controlled my destiny. I was old enough to manage my life without having to have constant nagging from him. Him! Who drank himself to sleep every night with his f***ing scotch and sodas. Who only cared about his precious golf every Sunday morning with the members of his foursome. And about MY grades.
So it was that a 15 year old, armed with the innocence born of a sheltered, good life, found a baby bird that had fallen from its nest in our garage. My sister and I knew that we could not pick it up and put it back, for the mother would smell our touch and kill the infant. But we knew we had to keep it alive somehow. So we fashioned some sort of temporary home for it on the floor of our dark garage.
When my father, oblivious to what our intentions were, came walking toward the two of us standing outside the garage, his steps sealed not just the fate of the bird. They also sealed his fate and my own. For when his foot came down on a bird that wasn't supposed to be there, it crushed the life of that already doomed creature and all "respect" I had left for him. The next few years were spent alternating between ambivilence and disgust as each of us self-medicated our way toward the Reagan years.
Fortunately I was able to reconnect with Dad after moving to Texas and beginning my own life. I realized that I was the one that had been unfair and that he had actually not been out to ruin my life.

Fast forward to just a few years ago. Hannah is a high school senior, 17 years old and blessed with all knowledge and knowledge of all things worth knowing. You could have asked her. She would have been glad to tell you. Our relationship strained and on more than one occasion seemed shattered beyond repair. My wife Stephanie had to witness each of us suffer through the pain of this time.
"Don't worry," I would say. "We'll be alright." I prayed this was so.
Hannah boarded that same train I had ridden (although without the intoxicants I had fueled it with. Her locomotive burned with pride. I watched it pull away. Days and sometimes weeks would slide into the ocean of the past without her and I having conversation. We usually managed to be civil with each other. Then she left for college 600 miles away. The mending started almost immediately.

Last Tuesday, my cel phone rang about 9:30 in the morning. Hannah was on the line, totally distraunt. The weight of the world had come down on her shoulders that morning and things looked hopeless. She needed a lifeline. We spoke and were able to figure out a plan to get her through the next hour. She called after that hour and things were better. We planned to talk again that afternoon. When the phone didn't ring, I assumed she had made it through.

On Wednesday morning my cel phone rang again. I saw the caller ID.
"Hi Hannah."
"Hi Dad. I just wanted to thank you. The talk we had yesterday morning really helped me; I was freaking out and you were able to calm me down. I love you."

She had handled her situations in the most responsible manner I could think of. She did the difficult work. Yet she called to thank me for being her voice of reason when panic and fear drowned out her own voice.

As I drove home from work that night, my eyes misted up a bit as I realized she was back on the landing next to me (even though she is 600 miles away). Arms around each other's shoulders, we look down the tracks at the trains leaving for Bi-Polar Mountains. I think each of us is glad her's (like her father's) was a round trip.