It’s nearly
midnight; 11:32 pm to be precise. We are
on our way to the beautiful beaches of sunny Florida.
Chandler has spent the majority of this trip
sitting with Josiah, helping him, feeding him and letting him snuggle up next
to her. She is so sweet with him.
I just took a
break from driving and we all swapped seats.
Rick took over at the wheel and I crawled in back to sit with Josiah for
a bit.
It’s only been 8
hours since we left home, but Josiah has done really great so far. He absolutely loves riding in the van.
He proved it on
our first road trip of the summer. Last
month we drove from Texas to Pennsylvania,
then to Ohio, then back to Texas.
That was one very
long trip with many, very long hours in the van. Josiah was a trooper. Given that nothing
about the experience was routine, I was quite surprised.
I really wasn’t
sure what to expect, but I anticipated some frustration. I expected maybe a melt down or two. I was ready for some type of confrontation.
Nothing about
Josiah’s routine was normal. He was in
unfamiliar territory. He was surrounded
by unfamiliar people. He had an
unfamiliar schedule. Yet, he breezed
right through it all.
I remember a few
hours into that trip, looking up to take notice of what everyone was
doing. Chandler was in the front, together with
Rick, singing silly songs, Jesse was engrossed in a computer magazine and
Josiah, sitting in the back, was simply staring.
He had discovered
the speaker panel closest to him and was mesmerized.
He stared at it for
hours.
At one point, I
moved back near him and looked intently at it myself. I wanted to see what he saw. I wanted to understand what it was that
captivated his attention for so long.
I can’t say I’ll
ever know, for sure. From my
perspective, nothing about it was intriguing.
There was nothing
sticking out of it or around it or near it that would draw attention to
it. There was nothing shiny about it
that would make it visually appealing.
There was no sound emanating from within.
I didn’t get it.
I didn’t need
to.
Josiah was so
blissfully happy, staring at it that it really didn’t even matter.
It made the trip
for him, fascinating. It made the trip
for us, peaceful.
Now, Josiah always
scoots to that spot in the van. No
matter how far we are driving, even just a few miles to the local store, Josiah
will bypass the seats in the middle of the van to plop down in the back, next
to his favorite place.
He’s sitting there
now.
I’m going to a
junk yard. I’m going to find a discarded
old van, just like ours, with a side panel just like the one Josiah loves. I’m going to rip it out and hang it up on the
wall in his bedroom.
It will make my
little guy exuberantly happy.
And it will buy me
hours and hours and hours of free time.
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