In 1909 a woman named Alice Ramsey climbed into a green Maxwell DA and she drove from New York to San Francisco. She was twenty-two and people told her the roads would kill her or the car would break and she would be stranded in the mud of the midwest.

She did it anyway because the wheel in her hands meant she owned the miles and she owned the minutes. She was the first woman to cross the country and she did it for no reason other than the fact that she could move herself from one place to another without asking for permission or waiting for a horse.

The car was not a tool for her but a machine that turned her will into motion. When she reached the Pacific the car was covered in dust and the tires were shredded but she was the master of the map. This is the part we forget when we talk about driving and we treat it like a chore or a bill or a risk.

The Steep Slope of North Vancouver

Margaret lives in a house in North Vancouver and the driveway is steep because everything in North Vancouver is built on the side of a mountain. For forty-two years she backed her sedan down that slope and she knew exactly when to turn the wheel so she did not hit the rock wall and she knew how the engine sounded when it was cold in the rain.

Last Tuesday her son and her daughter sat her down at the kitchen table and they had a folder full of papers. They told her the car was a liability and they told her the insurance was too high and they told her that her reflexes were not what they used to be.

They were right and Margaret knew they were right but she felt a cold lump in her chest that had nothing to do with the truth of the facts. They had a plan and they had apps on their phones and they showed her how to call a ride with a thumb press and they showed her how to get groceries delivered to the porch. They solved the logistics of her life and they felt very proud of themselves for being so organized and so caring.

They did not see that Margaret was not worried about the eggs or the milk or the doctor visit at the hospital in Burnaby. She was watching the keys on the table and she saw them as the last piece of her self that was allowed to go where it wanted without a witness. When you take the car away you are not just changing the mode of transport and you are changing the scale of the world.

The family thinks they fixed a problem but they really just paved over a grave and they did not even say a prayer.

I have to be fast and I have to be precise and I have to be honest. I stubbed my toe on the corner of the coffee table this morning and the sharp jolt of it made me angry at the table for being there and at my own feet for being clumsy and I am still carrying that small spark of resentment in my hip as I write this. It is a tiny loss of control over my own movement and it makes me think about Margaret.

The Sovereignty of the First Poke

I used to think my job was just about the blood and the vial and the label. I thought if I got the sample on the first poke then I was a success and the job was done. I was wrong about that and I was wrong for a long time.

I realized I was wrong when a six year old boy told me that he did not mind the sting but he hated that his mom had to hold his hand down. He hated that he was not the boss of his own arm for those ten seconds. That is what we do to the elderly and we become the bosses of their arms and their legs and their schedules because we are afraid they will get hurt.

We value safety over the spirit and we think a ride in a stranger’s car is the same as a drive in your own car. It is not the same and it will never be the same. When Margaret drives her own car she is the pilot and when she sits in the back of a rideshare she is a package being delivered from point A to point B. The package is safe and the package arrives on time but the package has no say in the route.

The family in North Vancouver talked about the cost of gas and the cost of tires and they did not talk about the cost of the sunset. Margaret used to drive to the water at Ambleside just to watch the lights come on over the bridge and she did not do it because she needed to be there. She did it because she could.

Now she has to ask her son to take her or she has to explain to a driver why she wants to sit in a parking lot for twenty minutes and stare at the waves. She does not want to explain and she does not want to ask so she stays home and she stares at the wall instead. The logistics are solved and the human is breaking.

We treat aging like a series of technical failures that need a workaround and we look at a hip that does not work or an eye that is cloudy and we find a tool to patch it. But the car is different because the car was the first thing that let us leave our parents and it is the last thing that keeps us from becoming children again.

We do this with the best intentions and we do it out of love and we do it because we do not want to get the phone call that there was an accident on the Highway 1. But we have to admit that we are killing something while we are saving something. We are killing the spontaneous soul and we are saving the physical body.

I see this in the hospital too when we treat the disease and we ignore the person who has to live in the room. We provide the best medicine and we provide the best food and we provide the best charts but we do not provide a reason to get out of the bed.

The Right to be Bored at 10 PM

My aunt lost her license in Coquitlam three years ago and she told me it felt like her legs had been cut off at the knees. She did not miss the traffic on the Lougheed Highway and she did not miss the price of oil.

She missed the ability to be grumpy and go buy a chocolate bar at ten o’clock at night just because she was bored. That boredom was hers and the cure for the boredom was hers. Now her boredom is a scheduled event that requires a three day notice and a confirmation text.

“It felt like my legs had been cut off at the knees.”

– Natasha’s Aunt, Coquitlam

The conversation needs to change and we need to stop talking about the car like it is a machine and start talking about it like it is a limb. If your mother lost an arm you would not just tell her that she can use a reacher tool and call it a day. You would acknowledge the grief and you would acknowledge the frustration and you would sit with her in the dark while she cried about it.

But when the car goes we just talk about the bus pass. We give her a brochure for a senior center and we tell her she can make new friends and we do not realize she does not want new friends she wants her old life. She wants the smell of the upholstery and the jingle of the keychain in her purse.

If we want to help the people we love then we have to stop being engineers of their lives and start being witnesses to their losses. We have to say I know this hurts and I know this feels like the end of something big. We have to find ways to give the agency back even if the keys are gone.

Honoring the Horizon

The roads in Metro Vancouver are getting crowded and the rain makes the pavement slick and the hills are hard on the brakes. I understand why the children are worried and I understand why they want the car sold. I am not saying we should let everyone drive forever because that is a recipe for a tragedy that no one wants.

I am saying we should be more honest about what we are asking them to give up. We are asking them to give up the horizon. We are asking them to give up the right to be impulsive. We are asking them to give up the Maxwell DA spirit that Alice Ramsey had when she looked at the mud and she said watch me.

When the stranger drove Margaret’s car away she stood at the window and she watched the taillights disappear around the corner of Lonsdale. Her daughter was in the kitchen making tea and her son was on his phone setting up the recurring delivery for her heart medication. They were doing everything right and they were being good children.

But Margaret was looking at her hands and she was moving her thumb in a small circle like she was still holding the steering wheel. She was practicing the phantom limb of her freedom.

I think about that boy in my clinic and I think about my aunt and I think about the toe I stubbed this morning. Control is a fragile thing and we do not value it until it is tripped up by a piece of furniture or a family meeting. We have to do better at honoring the grief of the driveway. We have to stop lying to our mothers and telling them that a ride is the same as a drive. It is a lie of convenience and it protects us from the hard work of sitting with their sadness.

Beyond Richmond, Burnaby, and Coquitlam

If you are the one holding the folder and the apps and the plan then take a minute to look at the person across the table. Do not just look at their eyes to see if they can pass a vision test and look at them to see if they are still in there. The car might be gone but the driver is still alive and she still wants to see the bridge at night.

Find a way to get her there that does not feel like a chore. Find a way to keep the world from shrinking too fast. It takes more time and it takes more patience and it takes a lot more love than just calling a taxi. But it is the only way to keep the spirit from being stranded in the mud of a quiet house.

We can provide the best care in Richmond or Burnaby or Coquitlam and we can make sure the house is clean and the fridge is full. But if we do not address the hole left by the car then we are just maintaining a building and we are not caring for a soul. Caring for a soul means knowing that the view from the passenger seat is always a little bit darker than the view from the wheel.

It means acknowledging that the loss of the car is a funeral for a certain kind of fire. Alice Ramsey died in 1983 and she lived to be ninety-six and she never stopped being the woman who drove across the country. We should all be so lucky to keep that fire burning even when someone else has to hold the match.

The next time you see a senior sitting in the back of a car looking out the window do not just see a passenger. See a pilot who is grounded. See a woman who used to know every shortcut in the city and every pothole on the street. See the grief that is hidden behind the logistics and then do something that makes the world feel big again.

It does not have to be a cross-country trip in a green Maxwell but it has to be a choice. It has to be a moment where she is the boss of the miles and the minutes once more. That is the only way to bridge the gap between being safe and being alive and it is a bridge we all have to cross eventually.

I will go home now and I will look at that coffee table and I will probably move it three inches to the left so I do not hit it again. I have the power to move the furniture and I have the power to drive my car and I have the power to decide where I go next.

I will not take it for granted today because I know that one day someone will come for my keys too. When they do I hope they bring more than just a folder and a plan. I hope they bring the grace to let me mourn the road.