313 Days Until the Big Five-O

Prompt 4 from the book Branches by Nancy Beckett

“Tell a story of traveling at night and of falling asleep, or at least seeing lots of other people asleep while decided what the trip you were making was going to be like. Describe in detail one sleeper in particular. Tell the story.


We make this trip so often I have a hard time telling them apart. My husband Marc and I load up the van and the kids and drive 8 hours, sometime 10, to Pittsburgh at least once a year, and often twice. I never do any of the driving. I usually get a couple hours of sleep in. In the beginning it was just me and Marc, then it was me, Marc and Reid, then Blair was born and it became a foursome. When the kids were little they had to be strapped into car seats like little astronauts. We go every thanksgiving religiously. Our summer and spring break trips are more sporadic. I have actually come to appreciate that I have somewhere to go every thanksgiving. Repetition makes you feel like you “belong” somewhere. Being tethered, depending on your disposition is either a good thing or a bad thing. I am someone who needs to be tethered. I resent the part of me that needs to be tethered. I wish I was more adventurous. When I worked for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago the big emphasis was that children needed a sense of belonging so maybe it is a good thing.

I like sleeping in cars. I like sleeping. But I loved seeing Blair asleep in her pink snow suit belted into her car seat. Her face was round and her skin looked so soft. It was not a secret to me or my many friends I wanted to have a daughter. I had a son, and actually I have grown quite fond of him over the years. But when you are a little girl playing with dolls and dreaming of being a teacher or a mommy one day it is that baby girl you want to hold in your hands, as if one of your real dolls came to life. I have a real doll. I don’t think about the awesome responsibilities involved when I watch her sleeping face surrounded by the white fur of her hood. All I can think about is how much I love holding her. I call her my little drowsy doll. Drowsy was the name of my favorite doll when I was a little girl. My Aunt Ruth bought her for me. Drowsy talked. I loved that talking doll as much, and probably more, than I loved my real friends. Drowsy was never going to let me down or leave me, or scare me. I would sleep at my Aunt Ruth’s apartment every Saturday night. It was right across the street from our apartment. If I forgot Drowsy my dad would have to run outside and meet my Aunt to get her. I loved sleeping at my Aunt Ruth’s. She had never been married and did not have any children so I guess I was HER little Drowsy Doll. I loved being her doll. She showered me with attention, love and things my own parents could not afford to buy me. My mother loved her oldest sibling and her only sister. My Aunt Ruth was more like a mother to my mother than a sister. Maybe that is where all the confusion started. None of us ever got to be in the “real roles” of our lives. It was nothing new in our family. Sisters became mothers, daughters became husbands and mothers, grandmothers became friends, brothers became enemies and eventually friends became family. Round and Round the assignments would fly. And if my Aunt Ruth was like a mother to my mother she was also like a Second Mother to me.

It is scary to see an adult cry when you are a child. You feel so helpless. It is easier to comfort a doll. It must be easier to take care of children than it is to take care of adults I think as Blair’s tiny breath blows in and out of her mouth. When I look at Blair in the back seat as we make our way through Ohio I keep thinking how much I loved her, and how much my Aunt Ruth would have loved her. I remember seeing my Aunt Ruth cry for the first time. It seemed unbelievable to me. She was short but really tough and strong. She had a career. She was a bookkeeper. She took care of my Bubby until my Bubby went blind and had to live in a Convalescence home. Aunt Ruth was dependable. I wish I had never seen her cry. It was so scary. I wanted to run to my room and get Drowsy but I was frozen in the spot on the carpet between the dining room and the living room. My feet would not have moved no matter how much I wished they would have. The front door bell rang. Aunt Ruth was home for dinner. She ate with us every night. But tonight was different, my mother’s brothers and my mother were in the living room waiting. My uncles also lived close by but there were married and had kids and only came by on Holidays or weekends. I wondered what they were doing in my house when I got home from school but I cannot remember the time between getting home and the door bell ringing and my mother and uncles opening the door. I do remember being told my Uncle Louie, the only one who did not live in the neighborhood with us had died. I was very confused, and I hardly knew him because he lived in Indiana, but my mother came from a close family and the three brothers and two sisters seemed much happier than I was with my two older brothers.

My Aunt Ruth must have looked shocked when she saw her two brothers at our apartment. They quickly told her to sit down in the big blue chair in our living room. She looked confused and she had a light complexion to begin with, but now it was getting so light she almost looked like you could see through her. She started to cry immediately. No one noticed me standing there. Maybe Aunt Ruth and I were both getting lighter and lighter, disappearing. “Ma, Ma” my Aunt Ruth cried as her arms stretched out in front of her towards her two brothers. I remember thinking, “Oh she thinks my bubby died.” But I could hear my Uncle Birney screaming over her anguished shouting, “No Ruthie, ma is alright. It was Louie. Louie is gone.” I had lost my first relative. It was an Uncle. I have only vague memories of him, but I will always remember the day he died and I saw my Aunt Ruth cry and cry and cry.


While Blair falls back to sleep we are almost out of Ohio and into Pennsylvania. I am thinking about the Aunts and Uncles I no longer have. My husband is lucky. He still has several Great Aunts. We were going to visit his Aunts and Uncles and my children’s Grandparents. I wanted to whisper inside Blair’s ear as she slept, these people are the people who you will think about one day while you are driving a car across the country to visit someone far away. You will be remembering your trips to Pittsburgh, your Aunt Bea and Uncle Don, waking Uncle Adam up on the couch every morning, going to breakfast with Pop Pop, waiting for Grandpa Fritz and Grandma Pat to drive down from Maryland to see you. Sitting on Grandma Sue’s bed and watching Barney. That is your father’s family. My family always stays in one place. Your dad was willing to move around, no wonder he likes driving so much. You would not have even been born had your dad not left Pittsburgh to move to Wisconsin for a job, and then again to Chicago for another job. He moved, his father moved, his step father moved, but his mother and her sister, Aunt Bea, they were like my family. They stayed in the same place, tethered. Perhaps it is the job of the women to provide that stable nest that is always there. Blair is sleeping and I am dreaming.