In the immortal words of Led Zepellin: You don’t have to go

About 6 weeks before he died, my father bought a truck. He said he bought it for Mrs. Craven as Mother’s Day gift, but we all recognized it for what it was: a Big Ass Truck toy for him. He offered it to my mother as a form of transportation, but she declined and told him to go and enjoy himself. (She had driven a Monster Truck of her own for many years until my brother wrecked it in a drunken haze and my dad bought her an SUV.) And enjoy it he did. He would drive home after work through the hills and call my mother on the satellite phone to tell her of his adventures. We rolled our eyes at his little boy excitement, but we also smiled at his indulgences. It seems that during last year, and the spring in particular, my father started to really relax and enjoy the fruits of labors. His piano playing actually became beautiful and melodic. He bought a fancy iPod and downloaded all of his favorite operas on to it. (Yes, I know. We called him a nerd, too, for it.) He got a sassy MAC laptop to manipulate his photos. And he just seemed to be at an ease that none of us had previously witnessed. If I were to describe it in one word, I would say that he had reached a certain peace. Part of the truck thing was the plan that upon his retirement he and my mother would get an RV sort of thing and take to the open road for months at a time.
So now here we are, five months later. My mother has two vehicles, she gave the third my brother, and is not sure what to do. Earlier tonight she and I spent two hours online looking at everything from fifth wheels to Airstream trailers. She still wants to travel and she also wants the kids and me to join her for certain trips. But the problem is that my father was the research guy. We really haven’t the right idea as to what he was thinking as far as vehicles go. It’s so complicated. I kept catching myself from calling out his name to come downstairs and help us. Truth be told, I like a manufactured form of terra firma under my ass and a good bed, not a camper trailer or the raw, bumpy earth. But my mother says that this dream is often what comes between her and the brink of insanity. This gives her hope and the urge to travel on without my dad. After much confusion, we ended up fantasizing about the places we would like to go in her travel trailers. She is more in tuned with the pictographs of the Utah canyons. And I have long wanted to drive the length of the U.S. side of the Gulf of Mexico. I would like to start somewhere in Houston, go through New Orleans and then end up somewhere in Florida.
After we were done looking at the horizons ahead, we had the startling come down of our present. The truth is that we miss him. I hear my mother go out daily and cry on the patio. Today she did it after she had pushed the message button on the phone that still holds his last words. I miss him, too. For somebody that was vitality itself, this is simply inconceivable. I wish he was here to yak on and on about travel trailers. I would roll my eyes at his geekiness, but at least he would be here. And that is far better than this emptiness, this second bestness, this void.