A Daughter is Forever

A daughter is forever. Tired as I am of travel, when my second daughter, Erika, needed help to drive her car from Minnesota to Texas before Christmas, I agreed to go.

(Picture: Somewhere in Missouri in the remnants of an ice storm)

We made a road trip together once before. When her husband Dan finished army basic training and was sent to California, her father and I didn’t want Erika making the thirty-four hour drive on her own. We figured three eight-hour days with a ten-hour thrown in somewhere along the way would work. (My British friends, who consider a four-hour journey to be a major undertaking, are shaking their heads in dismay.) Erika, who was eager to be reunited with her husband after ten-weeks of separation and only eight hours together at his graduation from basic, talked me into two fourteen-hour days and one six-hour final sprint.

We took a picture before setting off from Indianapolis. When we got in the car, Erika turned to me and said, “Mom, I want you to know that no matter what I say to you between here and California, I love you.” I agreed that any tension between us was travel related and not to be taken personally. In return I told her that any music she chose would be fine for one CD, but no repetition without mutual agreement and no two successive CDs that were not my style.

We had a ball. We alternated music with audio-books and took a picture in every state to commemorate the journey. I drove mornings while she dozed, and she drove into the evening as long as her wifely heart pulled her west. Of course the further west we got the more widely spaced the motels, but we always seemed to be approaching the last chance by 9 or 10 P.M. We marveled at the gleaming Bonneville Salt flats; gaped at the deep valleys and green forests around Lake Tahoe; and both fell in love with Monterey Bay at first sight.

The trip from Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Killeen, Texas was not so far—only seventeen hours according to Google, but Google didn’t allow for snow and ice in Kansas. We did it in two days with a couple cats who spent more time curled up in their nice soft litter box than in their carriers. Once again we listened to audio books and took pictures of ourselves in every state. This time Erika SMSed Dan in Iraq several times a day and sent an e-mail from the motel outside Wichita. Killeen is not Monterrey; I can’t say that I fell in love with the strip malls at first sight. But Erika (and the cats) are glad to be out of Minnesota's December cold and back in their own house.

My older daughter, Katie, has a daughter of her own now. Isabella toddles toward us with big smiles and extended arms. She says ‘kitty’ and pages through her board books. She climbs the stairs and descends on her belly. Katie cuddles her, plays with her and stays up in the night with her when she fusses. I watch and think back on Katie and Erika at that age. How much is still ahead for my daughter and granddaughter as their relationship grows through the years. It is just beginning, because a daughter is forever.