The journey south was relatively uneventful. Our stuff made it in record time, arriving at the terminal in Tennessee a mere two days after pulling away from Manchester-by-the-Sea. Our own passage took a little longer. We had hoped to visit friends on Long Island Monday evening, but that didn’t materialize. Instead, we stayed in Pennsylvania. I hadn’t been sleeping well. My mind kept turning on innumerable details – car registration, insurance questions, potential trucking fees, the heavy work of unloading the truck in Nashville. It did no better now that everything was underway. The second day, Tuesday, was hard driving. An ice storm was supposed to roll in that evening, blanketing the Appalachians. We couldn’t stop until Kingsport, until we made it to John and Tina Grubb’s house, a 12-hour trip. So we drove 80 m.p.h. most of the way. I-81 is a major East Coast artery, and I worried for Lynn-nore and the kids as trucks whizzed by. On one occasion, a car turned in between us, so I slowed down to force him to pass. 60 … 55 … 50, the driver matched every deceleration without a hint of frustration. This was a Sunday drive, apparently! At 35 m.p.h. I wondered if I wouldn’t have to stop and ask the driver to “please go on ahead.” Threading the mountains in West Virginia brought another challenge. This time, a small truck weaved first this way and then that, staying in the lane but with obvious difficulty. He was tired or he was under the influence. I sped past him and then hovered, encouraging Lynn-nore to do the same, but she didn’t move. She hung back. “Come on,” I said aloud, even though she couldn’t hear me, “pass him!” She seemed frozen. Finally, her blinker came on – take the next exit. “We’re just going to have to face this guy again,” I grumbled. We stopped at a truck stop, and I punched out of the truck. “Caleb needs to be changed,” she said. “I thought you were just nervous about that drunk driver,” I interjected. She didn’t know anything about it.
The truck stop smelled of cigarette smoke. Kara and I waited while Lynn-nore took Caleb into the ladies’ room. Hunting gear, electronic poker machines, and angel statuettes were everywhere. Kara took me on a trip through the gift shop. Kids toys, remote control tanks, t-shirts, hawaiian hula dolls, hair care products. I thought about the life of a truck driver, the life of many of the people sitting in the restaurant next door, watching the remote control tank in a video demonstration, buying a Coke at the register. I’d always placed such a life somewhere between the varieties of condoms for sale in the men’s room and the brands of cigarettes behind the cashier. Yet, I have lived in communities where being a trucker is a good life. Men save up to buy their own rig to the tune of $60,000+. These men and women are as much an image of God as I am. I have no business thinking less. They need toys for their kids, t-shirts, Cokes, shaving cream, just like anyone else. Our clothes smelled like rumpled Winstons as we returned to our vehicles. Kara had me plug the DVD player back in as I strapped the seatbelt around her. It had been all day in the car and she had a better attitude than I did.
My attitude was somewhere between grief and masculine single-mindedness. I wanted to get there (wherever) in good time. Yet I missed New England in general, and our friends SWR&QE in particular. Missing them was a dull ache in my heart. Yes, I was afraid of losing “me” to my Southern roots. “In some ways it is like New England never happened,” Lynn-nore had said one evening a few weeks ago, talking about the move and the future. Thom grows up in Kingsport and moves to the big city, with that loop somewhere up North. Nothing changed, nothing put behind, nothing new added. New England had been my going away to college, every choice there had been my own. Lynn-nore and I had made what we are there, and had put 11 years into it. The result had been running into people you knew on a regular basis, a church family with shared history, the historical-yet-frenetic nature of Boston, the omnipresent beauty of the Atlantic coast, the rich resources of the BTI, decent snowfall, church bells in Harvard Square, the song-sand of Singing Beach and many, many friends, like shiny coins jangling in a pocket, and then there was SWR&QE.
SWR&QE are missionaries, and missionaries live their lives under the question mark of God. We, too, were aware of that question mark: things would change. One day God would open a door and that would be it. Hadn’t that been my prayer for nearly a decade: “What next, Lord?” New England had been a stepping stone in the beginning, a cliff not a plain. We knew going into our relationship with them that every moment had the word “temporary” written on it. But it didn’t matter. Words weren’t required. How many times did QE go up and read to Kara in her room after a long day of managing 1st graders? How often did SWR just take Caleb from us, not as if holding him was a chore but a welcome pastime. They are “our bummy friends.” We had opened the doors of our heart to them, and with it all other doors as well. How could we go with the baby due? How could we go with stories yet to be snapped off in a weekend? And it was we, not they, who were leaving. Leaving for a place far away and not coming back. Who is the missionary now? Who has sent whom? I nursed my ache with each passing mile, and my mood was as torn and overcast as the clouds against the black Virginia hillsides.
No comments:
Post a Comment