Rollerbag Goddess Global Communications

To qualify as an epic journey, must an act of travel include the crossing of dark mountains, raging seas or searing deserts? Must the traveler lose her way for days, months, or even years, battle monsters and villains, and finally reach that point where it seems she must give up and go home, only to summon the final push of courage to reach her destination?

Or could an epic journey simply be a bus ride from St. Paul, Minnesota to Jamestown, North Dakota, taken on a midsummer day by a fiercely dedicated 76-year-old grandmother, who knew, deeply, things about life that I, her grandson and the reason for her journey, had not yet learned: That time is so very precious. You hug it tight and slow it down whenever you can.

My grandma Lucille and I had been as close as could be since, well, the day I was born. She had been at the hospital and told the extended story every year on my birthday; a saga starring my nervous dad, my exhausted mom, my photographer uncle setting up his lights in the hospital room, and me, who she held and fell in love with when I was “15 minutes old.”

But now I had started my career one state away, and she must have wondered, what might come next? Two states, three states, half a continent? How many meaningful visits did we have left? Would we share nothing more than occasional phone calls, short letters, holiday visits? Not on my grandma’s watch.

To understand why this truly was an epic journey for her, consider that my grandma lived alone and no longer could drive. Simple trips to the grocery store or the doctor involved mostly public transportation like city buses or an unreliable “senior mobility” transportation program, whose drivers often forgot to pick her up or were running so late that she gave up and had to walk many blocks back home, appointments missed, errands undone. She once told me over the phone that on a cold, sloppy spring day she’d struggled to an assigned pickup spot, waited for more than an hour, and then struggled back home.

I felt gut-punched. I should be there, I thought. I should be around to help. What am I doing here anyway, so far away from the place I still think of as home?

“It’s okay, honey,” she would say. And she meant it. She wanted me to pursue my career and build my own life, to go where fate took me, to not feel obligated or tied down. Her sincerity made it hit even harder. All I wanted in those moments was to be eight years old again, spending a weekend in the safe, warm cocoon of her apartment in St. Paul, our feet up, bowls of snacks spread out on her coffee table, watching The Love Boat.

Of course she felt this too. I could hear it in her voice over the phone. Her sign off, “I miss you, honey,” brought warm tears to my eyes every time.

So when my grandma called and asked if she could visit me and my fiancée at our humble North Dakota apartment, taking a Greyhound bus, no less, I wasn’t surprised. It was exactly the kind of thing she would do, whatever she had to endure, to slow down the inevitable march of time.

Another thing to know about my grandma is that she was the most Zen person you could ever meet. Not that she practiced Buddhism or even knew what it was—I can almost hear her saying, “Zen? Zen who?” But she was a living example of how to be in the moment at almost all times.

If you took her to a restaurant and there was a wait for a table, she would sit calmly and watch people. She would smile and wave at little kids, watch the servers as they scurried back and forth. No complaining, no fidgeting, no impatient sighs. And she enjoyed almost any restaurant. Unless the service or food was remarkably bad, she would look around and say, “Isn’t this nice?”

When I went with her to Christmas or Easter Mass at her ornate little church in downtown St. Paul, she would ask to get there as early as possible, just to sit quietly and admire the flowers and decorations, listen to the choir warm up, soak in the atmosphere.

Even when I asked her to go to the mall–required for an 80s kid–she would let me go exploring and wait for me at a bench, observing the life swirling around her, making friends sometimes with others who felt more comfortable just sitting rather than shopping and consuming.

Zen. I knew this quality of hers when she took the bus that day. I shouldn’t have been worried, but I was.
This was the mid-1990s, so once she got underway, there would be no calls, no text updates, no checking of apps, to make sure her trip was going OK. We just had to show up at the station and hope she had made it.

Then, there she was, gingerly climbing off the bus, smiling. I did it! Can you believe it? Her face seemed to say.

It’s been so long now that we don’t remember exactly all that we did over those several days. There was a tour of the little prairie town, a dinner out at a surprisingly good Mexican restaurant, and a couple movie nights with our feet up on the coffee table and snacks all around. “Just like old times,” she would have said.

Oh, and the grasshoppers. Not the spry little insects, rather the old-school supper club drink. The idea for fun, alcoholic ice cream drinks came from my fiancée–the Rollerbag Goddess–who somehow found the necessary elixirs and whipped up the green adult milkshakes for us. My grandma had never had one, and her face lit up when she had her first taste. She may have even gotten a little tipsy.

It all felt cozy and simple. Just like old times.

Grandma lived another 16 years, to age 92, and I’m deeply happy to say we continued to remain close. Her voyage to North Dakota was by no means our last meaningful time together, but in the moment it felt like a rite of passage for both of us. I was growing up, like all grandchildren do. But she could still try to hold on tight, wherever I was.

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