Riding Shotgun :: 2011
I was driving east through North Dakota the day after Christmas. It was dark, cold, the road was snow packed, and I was in a blizzard when my friend and ex-sister-in-law called. I answered, said hello and once she said “Hi!”, I asked if she would hold on for just a minute. I muted my phone, the hairs went up on the back of my neck, and my eyes filled with tears. I couldn't believe it was her of all people calling me at that moment. I got back on, and she asked me how I was, where I was and said that she'd been wanting to talk with me since my mother’s funeral almost two months earlier. Her call felt like divine intervention. We caught up with each other and then she listened to my grief.
I’d spent a few days in Montana during the Christmas holiday with some family members while my wife and daughter were in Florida to be with her family. I drove to Missoula purposely avoiding my hometown, specifically my mom's house. It would have been still like a funeral home filled with specific flowers my mom wouldn't have liked. Like when certain songs were chosen for her service that had no connection to her. The music was more about the people who chose it, like Danny Boy. She wasn't Scottish, or the Springsteen song Missing that I asked to be included. I don’t remember her once saying she was a fan of the Boss. It’s a great song, but that was about me, not her. The house would feel like a parlor filled with shock and a ticking clock, so I avoided it.
I looked forward to the return trip because road trips are always therapy—my shoulders relax, and I feel light. Seeing family was good, but the drive was the main reason I went—for the mulling, the thinking, the re-thinking, the re-mulling, the talking out loud, the landscape, and the picture taking is what heals me—maybe a little like the Cat Stevens song On the Road to Find Out. After my sister-in-law and I said goodbye, I drove out of the lead edge of the storm where the interstate was eventually dry. I took the photograph Riding Shotgun with my mom next to me and the storm close behind.
For Mom and Janet
Songs :: On the Road to Find Out by Cat Stevens, Joanne by Lady Gaga, Dear Mama by 2Pac, and Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen
© C. Davidson