The Long View

A road with a long view in Tennessee, 2021

A few weeks back, we traveled to see loved ones who we’ve missed so agonizingly much. It’s a trip we’ve postponed several times. In 2019, finances, health, and timing didn’t work out. 2020 was filled with more negative adjectives than I want to write, add Covid and a few expensive medical tests. We hoped to go in April this year, still it didn’t work.

Finally, things seemed to line up: lovely accommodations with extra cleaning and disinfecting, time off from work, and the grandbabies, (who had already decided they were going even if they had to fly) were able to come with us.

We’re vaccinated, as were the people we went to visit. We masked and sanitized. There’s no guarantee we won’t get some form of Covid. But I figure masking is a bit like birth control – there are no guarantees, but some protection is usually helpful. All of my life I have seen people wear masks to protect themselves – cancer patients, surgeons, doctors, and medical staff, elderly folks trying to protect against the flu, people with sensitive lung functions trying to protect against bad air quality, ill people trying to keep their contagions to themselves…

My Doctor – Also a Colonel in the Military – and is one of the smartest, most courageous, bravest, kindest, and most service-oriented people I know. I look to her as an example. My husband and I researched a wide variety of facts and opinions before we made this decision. We read information from both the pro and anti; maskers, vaxxers, travelers… We tend to avoid the extremes. We’re not going to run around the country like half-naked hillbillies, coughing, spitting, and arguing everywhere we go. We also can’t stay locked inside our home and not enjoy some of this gorgeous world around us.

Fortunately, no one screamed at us to wear a mask, or not wear a mask. Many travelers we saw were masked; and many were not.

Everyone was polite!

We spent a lot of time in our truck. I was worried about how the grandchildren would handle so much time in a vehicle, and was ready to turn around at any point and bring them back home.

Those grandbabies were a dream! They were so sweet the entire trip. They listened extremely well. I couldn’t have asked for better kids.

We played several games along the way. We looked for all the US state license plates and found 41 state plates! We played the Alphabet Game – look for a word outside the vehicle that starts with the letters of the alphabet in order. We got stuck on Q once and on Z another time. We also played a Numbers game in the same way. That went really fast, numbers are on all kinds of signs. We played tic-tac-toe on a magnetic board (magnets have not stuck to us after being vaccinated). We played tons of card games – Go Fish, Old Fish, Crazy 8’s, Golf, Slap Jack… They read, did homework, practiced their drawing skills. They took tons of pictures and kept in touch with family back home.

I was most impressed with how they noticed the change in the landscape and scenery. They commented on the different tree shapes. Most of the trees in our area are pines, they saw a lot of ‘broccoli looking trees’ along the way. We live in the land of 10,000 lakes, with lots of curvy roads, and lots of pine trees blocking the horizon. We drove through stretches of the country where we could see over flat land for miles. And of course, the kids loved it as the hills got bigger and turned into mountains.

“Oh look at the view!” was shouted like a million times – sometimes by me, but mostly by them.

My husband and I try to balance our life as best we can.

• We look at the future – we take a long view ahead to our grandchildren’s and great-grandchildren’s futures and try to figure out how to best help them. What can we offer them, that they can use in their futures? What will they need? Above all else, they all will forever have our love. Hopefully they’ll always remember all that love, and all the ‘somethings‘ and ‘nothings‘ we did together. May they always be healthy, and filled to the brim with the goodness we gathered from the generations before us.
• We look at right now – we don’t want to miss any of the love and fun right in front of us. Time goes way too fast, and I want to soak up every single second of joy this life has to offer.
• We look at the past – what have the previous generations done that we can pass onward? We’ve collected as many good values as we could from our parents and grandparents, to gift forward. We’ve listened and learned from their stories, of adventure and bravery and daring and faith and hard-work and hope and Love. We listened when they talked about the mistakes they made, and we try to avoid those things.

Despite our best efforts, we’ve made some mistakes along the way, and we’ll probably make more as we go.

But in the meantime, “look at the view!“

View from the top of Grandfather Mountain, NC, 2021