A Story About Grieving On A Solo Cross-Country Drive
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THOUGHT CATALOG
Written by Lucinda Koza
I wasn’t simply driving his car away for a while. I was taking it into my permanent possession. My dad cannot drive anymore as a direct result of the dementia and Parkinson’s he suffers that make a meal out of his loss, emptiness, and unbalance.
He had agreed that I would take his car so that I could sell mine and come out better for it financially. Still, the visceral feeling that I was taking something from him overwhelmed me. This man, who once seemed to live out of his car (he named it Louise) and once seemed as if he’d never admit defeat was now so withered and diminutive — a human tremor — that no claim to his car even exists in the ether for him to grab onto.
From this man, from my father, who has lost so much — two marriages, two houses, a law firm, the ability to speak — I was taking more, and for my own benefit. I was stripping my dad of possessions and independence. I was feasting on the carcass too.
An almost comical addition to the circumstance is that I would have to make this 11-hour drive completely alone. Of course! I had done everything for and with my dad alone, becoming his primary family caregiver, no one to help me carry the trauma of saving his life that day.
