Last Time

The Last Time

A true story by Erick Sahler

This morning began the last day of a two-week road trip in which Tracy and I drove more than 4,400 miles; spent 24 hours at sea on North Atlantic ferries; saw dozens of minke and humpback whales, hundreds of puffins and seven dead porcupines; chatted with Andrew Wyeth’s nephew; and listened in awe as a Cape Breton welder named Brendan Terry Allen spun 90 minutes of nonstop tales.

We spent our last night in a chain hotel, trading in a year’s worth of accumulated points for a free night of luxury. It did not compare with the wonderfully diverse BnBs of Newfoundland, where we mingled, conversed and broke bread with the locals and fellow travelers. You don’t get that sort of interaction and cultural exchange hermetically sealed in a corporate hotel room, no matter how luxurious it is.

As we began to load out our luggage one last time, I looked down the hotel’s long hallway and spied a dad in shorts and a T-shirt pushing his small daughter around on an empty luggage trolley.

“Enjoy these times,” I said as they passed. “They won’t last forever.”

“She’s only 3,” the dad replied. “We’ve still got some time.”

That’s what I used to think.

Fifteen years ago, it was me pushing my two little girls around for the first time on a hotel luggage trolley. After that, it became a family tradition at every hotel stop for a decade of road trips.

But time passes and little girls grow up, and eventually move on.

Two summers ago, Alison remained in Virginia to attend an arts camp instead of joining us on the family road trip. This year, Tracy and I hit the road with Alison working at her university’s summer camp in Philadelphia while Molly flew off to Germany to visit her “exchange sister” Lea and her family.

So it was the first time in two decades that Tracy and I have traveled without our daughters. Even though we followed their adventures through texts and social media, their absence was constantly on our minds. And the scene of that dad pushing his little girl on a luggage trolley brought it all crashing down. I had to hold back the tears.

As we go through life we dutifully record our milestone firsts. Who doesn’t remember their first kiss or their first day at a new job? But our milestone lasts fade into the mist before we never notice.

Who remembers the last time your childhood friends went outside to play together or the last meal you shared with your grandparents?

Or the last time you pushed your daughters down a hotel hallway on a luggage trolley?

As the final miles of this summer’s road trip clicked off, Tracy and I looked ahead. I will attend an illustrators conference in Kansas City in July 2020, which we plan to combine with a vacation to Colorado to visit family and friends. Would Alison and Molly be joining us, I wondered, or is our last family road trip already in the past?

We’ll have to wait and see.

Nothing lasts forever, it’s true. But we’ve still got some time.

In the summer of 2009, we visited Sahler Plaza in Omaha. Back then, I imagined we’d be taking family road trips forever.