That one’s headed for Memphis.

My father’s family physician demanded that he stop driving more than a year ago. Subsequent visits to the neurologist and psychologist ended with them asking my mother, “You’ve taken the keys away, right?” On a medical chart under the “Driving” section, one doctor wrote “Never” in red and underlined it. Daddy without a doubt no longer can safely operate a vehicle.

In an instant Mother’s role switched from carefree passenger to constant chauffeur, from wife to exhausted caregiver. While Daddy remains the captain of his soul, Mother steers his day-to-day life. Daddy’s overall loss of independence is emasculating, but, to me, driving in particular underscores a father’s manhood. This past Christmas my father-in-law drove my husband, mother-in-law, and me around his neighborhood to scope out the entrants for the annual community holiday light competition. He navigated the side streets and cul-de-sacs while we suctioned ourselves to the windows, noting the sophistication of classic manger scenes; smiling at old-fashioned bubble lights; and laughing at a tacky ice skating Snoopy that actually moved. My stomach packed into a snowball when I thought about Daddy, unable to take us on Christmas light car tours; on long, scenic rides through the North Georgia mountains; or somewhere as simple as the store.

The other day Mother left Daddy at home while she ran a few errands. My uncle, however, had come over to complete some yard work Daddy can’t do anymore. When Mother returned, her brother approached her with a confused expression, apprehensive about whether to bring up what weighed on his mind.

“What?!” she prodded.

“Uh. Is he s’posed to be drivin’?”

While Mother was away, Daddy backed the truck out of the garage and down the driveway, and left.

“He wudn’t gone all that long,” my uncle said.

“And how did he get the keys?!” I hysterically interrogated Mother when she later relayed the story to me.

“I left them in the ignition. They are hidden now,” she emphasized before I could freak out.

Perhaps Daddy escaped to the local Citgo station to purchase a candy bar, or coasted across nearby Cornelison Road to view the chicken houses and open fields and corn rows. Another lost freedom is taking a country drive alone.

The driving incident reminded me of a poem I wrote for Daddy in college, when per usual I mourned his future death.

The Meteor Shower

At four a.m. Daddy shines his flashlight in my face,
pulls me out of bed and says “C’mon.”

I follow his lean silhouette down the hall,
the sound of the pine needles crackling under his feet.

He stops at the top of the hill and opens his arms
to magnificent meteors drizzling down the sky.

“That one’s headed for Memphis,” he says, as I realize that,
like stars, my daddy’s not forever.

That star must have melted over Memphis
when my single tear hit the ground.