On Thursday, while the mercurial depths plunged lower and colder , and the winds sculpted the drift by the back barn door higher, we read words that Grandpa Voskamp’s thick Dutch fingers had pecked out for us northerners:
“Have 8 bikes ready, some old, some new, some wobble, some don’t. All for now, Grandpa.”
I’d laughed (a poet, and he don’t know it!) and the children fell into happiness too, and we packed our bags, a few of them, and made some cookies for the trip, essentials, and we headed south, for weren’t there bikes and an anxious Grandpa waiting for us somewhere in the sun?
When we got to the border, waited our turn in the queue of cars, a church stood there too, white steeple pointing all wanderers in the right direction. We waited. I prayed.
Then the shocks of the van jolted over Michigan potholes and interstates, and Farmer Husband’s bandaged thumb, braced on his knee, vibrated and throbbed. I called out words from the 1921 Ontario Speller. Joshua could spell asylum and Levi couldn’t spell eclipse. Michigan huddled under snow.
We sang through Ohio, Joshua whistling (only a tad too loud),
“This is my Father’s world. I rest me in the thought of rocks and trees and skies and seas; His hand the wonders wrought.”
And the trees and sky and old clapboard barns, white paint flaking and spangled banner flying, all through Ohio really are that: His. The sun sank and the snow wore thin through the grass just outside of Cincinnati.
In the dark of Kentucky, they slept and Farmer Husband and I talked, a date night of sorts. When we pulled in for gas near Lexington, Malakai stirred. “Are we out of Turkey yet?”
My laugh startled slumbering ones. Turkey? Why would you think we’re in Turkey… Ah, yes, “Turkey” akin to “Kentucky” — no, we’re still winding through Kentucky, son.
The top of Tennesse’s Jellico Mountain, I looked down in the dark to the twinkling lights of lives clustered below in villages and stories. Down there, babies slept, lulled to sleep by the hum of lives swishing by on the interstate, a flash of headlights moving on.
We slept in Georgia. Woke to negative 12 F. The attendant in the office wore a tuque and Levi needed to know, “How can it be this cold here and you have no snow?”
The attendant shrugged her shoulders, handed Farmer Husband our receipt. The water bottles in the van had frozen during the night. Kai and Shalom sloshed the ice slush back and forth, their own musical band of swishing away winter.
South of Atlanta, Shalom unscrewed her lid and doused Kai with icy water. Malakai howled and banged Levi’s head and the back of the van sobbed and the middle of the van grumped nearly as loudly over the spike in decibels. Parents in the front attempted comfort at 65 miles an hour and I questioned (only now?) the sanity of this crazy escapade (23 hours of driving with eight people in a mini-van and a stash of tuna sandwiches.)
The words Farmer Husband had prayed quietly in the morning, the two of us with bowed heads in the chill of a Georgia dawn, navigated me in the right direction towards the sunshine state: “Children are a blessing from You, Lord – cause us to have Your perspective today, Lord.”
As Kai wailed louder and Shalom hollered, “I just want to get there right now!” I smiled thinly and ask, “Hope, can you pass out the hymn books?”
When you receive a blessing, don’t you celebrate with song? (And too, song is this thing that the angels do, and when I’m slipping fast into that pit of mother madness, hymns are stairs of ascent.)
We sang across the Florida state line:
“Take my life and let it be, consecrated Lord to thee. Take my moments and my days; let them flow in ceaseless praise, let them flow in ceaseless praise.”
I prayed the refrain, repented of (so) much.
The chorus played on soul repeat as we past the palm fronds heralding in the wind, the exit to Tampa.
In Friday’s coming twilight, we turned off I-75, 2300 km from that drift at the back door of the barn, and when we pull into Grandpa’s laneway, we park the van out back near the blooming bougainvillea, there by the bike rack.
I count. There they are leaning and waiting: eight pairs of ready wheels. We’ve crossed an international border and six state lines, but we’ve found them!
Children cheer! Where’s that Grandpa man to thank, to hug up?
A weary mess of crumbs, wrinkles and almost frayed nerves, we rolled out of the van. And Farmer Husband called off kids dashing for lanai door to dive upon waiting Grandpa.
“Wait! Let’s go in singing.”
Josh grinned, mentally searched his hymn warehouse, and began. A most appropriate chorus for driving across a continent and dragging into the destination:
“Praise ye the Lord!”
We laughed our happy response, “Hallelujah!”
And then, marching single file into Grandpa’s house, all of us spilling relief: “Praise ye the Lord, Hallelujah!”
We can hear Grandpa’s laughter.
In the morning we’ll ride our bikes and Grandpa will laugh again, long and deep, as the children whir down his lane, and I’ll think how some days (really) wobble, and some (hardly) don’t, but a day’s long ride is (always) happier with a song in the heart
Do I have any ready?
Lord, make me song ready for today. Do I have a hymn in my heart, praise on my lips?
Photos: our weekend wanderings, from the north to the south
