The wipers swished back and forth, on high speed, struggling to sweep the pouring rain from the car’s windshield. I squinted at the road ahead, careful to avoid hydroplaning.
“Remind me, whose idea it was to travel to Tennessee for my birthday?” I sarcastically asked after we had stopped for a coffee break, the rain chasing us back in our cars, pelting us as it drenched our clothes.
“I guess mine,” Madi, our daughter, confessed as we talked on our cellphones, she and her family following Lori and me as we drove in separate cars to our destination.
It was Lori’s idea to make this trip, to bring our families together for my 70th birthday.
And I had agreed, for at the time, it seemed like a grand idea. Lori had so wanted to do something special for my 70th birthday. But our oldest daughter, Mary, was pregnant and her baby was due about the time of my birthday, so we had delayed, knowing we would travel to New York to be with her.
But on November 7, my birthday, all I wanted to do was stay home. It had been a busy week: we had just gotten back from New York (Yes, Mary and Peter’s baby, Lionel, had in fact come earlier than expected.) The next day, I had taught my class, then got ready to leave for Tennessee. That’s when the weather had turned nasty: cold and rainy. All I wanted to do was relax in my favorite chair, sip hot tea or coffee, and cozy up with a good book.
But, with my grimace face, there I was driving in the pouring rain.
Somewhere between the coffee break in London, Kentucky, and the exit on I-75 in Corbin, Kentucky, with the 18 wheelers splashing me with layers of water as I weaved between them, my Dad spoke to me.
No, not audibly, just an imagined voice, but one so typical of what Dad would say. First, the memory of his voice, clearing his throat before speaking—his unconscious signal for me to pay attention to what he was about to say. This time it happened over 50 years ago. We were in Yemen, where Dad was offering his dental skills to the Yemeni people. We were in a remote location near the small town of Jibla. I was whining, characteristic of a teenager without a radio, TV, or easy access to hot water.
Dad listened, then asked me, “What’s our Christianity if it only works when everything goes like we want?”
Driving to Tennessee was nothing like being in Yemen. But doggone it, if I didn’t hear him clearing his throat to speak.
So I paid attention: “What’s this, have you suddenly become an ol’ grump the day you turned 70?”
I thought of the time he and Mom, well into their 80s, had flown from Oklahoma to Kentucky to see our son, David, Jr., play in the high school football state play-offs, arriving in Louisville, then driving to the game in Shepherdsville, Ky, and then traveling back with us to Lebanon, Ky., all in one day.
“What are you laughing about?” Lori asked from her side of the car.
Maybe the fact that I am in excellent health, have children in Kentucky and Tennessee who are anxious to be with me on my birthday, have a friend who got up before daylight to bake my favorite chocolate cake, am sitting next to a wife who adores me even when I’m grumpy, and above everything: the assurance of an eternity with my Lord Jesus Christ, a security that nothing on this earth can take away.
We ate pizza at David’s, enjoyed another chocolatey cake (they know what I like), opened more presents than I needed, and I giggled, rolling on the floor with all our grandkids (except for newborn Lionel in New York).
And that night, as I crawled into bed, I thought of Dad again, and thanked the Lord above for reminding me of his words, so long ago, but ever so present: words to a teenager back when, still echoing in the ears of a 70-year-old, now.