You don’t know what you don’t know. And I didn’t know what I put her through.
My mom waited 11 hours to hear from me. Eleven hours that should’ve been six, while she was home in Illinois, and I was a high schooler on a January drive with friends from there to Iowa to visit my boyfriend’s college.
The beginning of our trip was frigid yet bright, but as morning turned to afternoon, clouds amassed and heavy globs of snow pounded and became unrelenting, causing roads everywhere to shut down. We were oblivious, singing at the top of our lungs to the radio and cassettes we popped into the player—it was 1985, after all—and not taking cover like the highway patrol had told my mother she should pray we do.
Even though visibility was nothing but white on white, I drove slowly in the middle of the double lane (not acknowledging the increasing and alarming number of cars in the ditch) and stayed on the broken center line I could scarcely make out.
We inched west and when we finally arrived on campus, I located a telephone booth at a gas station and rang my boyfriend to let him know we’d arrived. I squeezed my fingers to warm them with the now sub-zero wind chill.
“Have you talked to your mom?” he asked when he heard my voice. “She’s called about 50 times!”
I said I’d call him back, hung up, pressed more quarters into the pay phone, and dialed.
“Thank God! Thank God!” she repeated over and over.
I didn’t fully comprehend until much later after I’d had babies of my own. How could I? And how could they? Our kids? How could they understand a mother’s anguish?
How could they cheerfully accept the occasions when they started driving and I wouldn’t let them go, in blizzards or severe storms, to this coveted party or that exciting event?
“Mom, you’re being ridiculous!”
“Everybody else can go!”
“I’m just supposed to sit here because there’s snow? I’m not going to live that way!”
They didn’t know (like me) that, for good or for bad, moms worry—because we’ve seen and experienced too many tragedies and have contemplated all the what ifs.
Their younger selves didn’t conceive their immortality nor wholly embrace the fact that God had appointed a couple adults (their dad and me) authority to sometimes make decisions on their behalf—often difficult ones, going against the majority, in an attempt to protect them from themselves and the world (and the weather).
What they did know, though, was they were and are dearly cherished. (And, also, that they were stuck with a mother and father who were trying to ruin their lives!)
But, now, after decades of voyages around the sun and encouraging them to go for all their hopes, goals, and dreams, we’re not only parents but grandparents to their children.
I recently sat for one of our granddaughters on another snowy January day—40 years after that teen road trip to see my boyfriend/now husband—and was texting with her daddy/our oldest.
Me: How’s your day going?
Him: Not bad! How about yours?
Me: We’re having so much fun!
Him: That’s great! I can pick her up in an hour!
Me: I was thinking I could drive her to you? I need to run out for a couple errands anyway. Dad said the roads aren’t terrible. I’ll go slow!
Him: Ok . . . that sounds good. Thank you! But, yes, please be careful and drive safe!!!
How precious times have changed.
Comprehension comes through a myriad of experiences and by way of an ineffable devotion a parent can have to their child: protective, unwavering, boundless, and everlasting; a shelter in the storm and one that, for the receiver, may take years to understand—as it did for me and for them and will, no doubt, for their children.
This has been my circle of life, the process of growing up and then watching our own grow and continue to, which truly never stops thrilling and filling my heart.
The Lord has brought us to this beautiful merging point of generations. It’s a glittering gift to behold, like the sun’s colorful reflection on ice crystals after snowfall.
I’m blessed to witness the discovering and the affection in our grandchildren’s parents as their distinct parental love and legacies reverently unfold before our eyes.
Originally published on the author’s blog
by Sandy Brannan 
by Kathryn Andersen 
by Heather McGuire 
