Tomorrows Keep On Coming 
by E. Noel Preston, MD

   My nurse, Susan, is driving with her 23-year-old college graduate son Michael across the country to his first real job in California. He majored in Cultural and Natural Resources and is going to be a Ranger with the U.S. Forestry Service at Inyo National Forest in California. So that neither of them has to endure his Momma driving him to work, she's only going as far as Las Vegas and flying back home from there. Mike will then have a short 250-mile drive to his first job station. What a time they will have!  Seeing Elvis Presley's home in Memphis, crossing the Mississippi River, going through Little Rock, where President Dwight Eisenhower called out U.S. Marshals to integrate the public schools, having REAL chili in Amarillo, Texas, seeing the Grand Canyon (and it really is Grand) at Flagstaff, Arizona, and finally, Las Vegas, a true Disneyland for adults, with its wedding chapels and gambling casinos.

   But more important than the places they visit, what an opportunity they will have to remember the good times, like Mike finding the Big Prize at the third grade's Easter egg hunt or getting accepted to college, the scary times like his burst appendix, or the exciting times like that first trip down a black diamond ski slope. Maybe there will be an opportunity to explore an old misunderstanding and make it right, or to find out there wasn't really a misunderstanding after all and nothing needs making right anyway.

   Many years ago, my mother gave my wife and me a flower arrangement after our first child was born. The flowers were in a beautiful old porcelain vase that someone had given my grandmother. It had choirs of angels with delicate golden wings and was exquisite, even though there was a very slight chip on its bottom edge. I wish we still had it, but my wife thought it was a valuable family heirloom and that my mother might want it back. A few days after the flowers had died she returned it. My mother thought we didn't want it because it was damaged, and so she threw it away. For years I thought we had hurt my mother's feelings over this vase, but when I finally apologized, she had forgotten all about it!

   Big Events like weddings, leaving for college, the birth of a grandchild, the death of a parent, or buying the first house seem to invite Meaningful Conversations. When my Aunt Evelyn was terribly sick in the hospital and near death after a heart attack, her doctor told the family everyone should reach back into their memories to find something they thought Aunt Evelyn had done that had disturbed them and to forgive her for whatever that might have been. My 30+ year-old cousin Charley thought as hard as he could and finally told his mother he forgave her for not letting him bring some baby ducks home from a farm they had visited when he was nine. Everyone thought that was so ridiculous they laughed all afternoon and then decided Aunt Evelyn really hadn't done anything that needed forgiving. Everyone just stayed close to each other and enjoyed each other's company and then finally, Aunt Evelyn went home from the hospital and lived six more years.

   On the wedding day of my first daughter to be married, I chose to be the one who would drive her from her home to the church, and her youngest sister rode in the back seat to keep the wedding dress from getting wrinkled. We needed gas for the car and the lines at the gas stations were unbelievable and so I kept driving from one station to another. Finally Erin piped up from the back seat, "What are you trying to do, Dad -- find the cheapest gas in town?" We drove on in stony silence. At last I had the chance to tell Laura how happy I was with her and for her and the wonderful man she was about to marry, but before I could say anything, Laura mentioned that she planned to have her veil down over her face for her wedding picture. "Are you nuts?" I said. "The flash from the camera will reflect off the veil and no one will be able to see your face. You're going to look like a glob of whipped cream!" Now, that is not the best thing to say to a young woman who is getting married in less than four hours. It was not a Splendid Occasion, but there have been other times, many times, that were.

   And so the trip to the church should have been just that: a trip to the church. Susan and Mike's travels across the country to his first real job should be simply a pleasant journey for both of them and a collection of enjoyable memories for the future. There won’t be a need for meaningful dialog because that’s the thing about tomorrows: They keep on coming!

E. Noel Preston, M.D. is a pediatrician in solo practice in Peachtree Corners. 6063 Peachtree Parkway, Suite 202-A, Norcross. (770) 448-1553. More information can be found at www.PeachtreeCornersPediatrics.com

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