Live a little!

Life is weirder than I thought. Take, for example, my new polyfiber leopard-skin car seat covers—a gift from my teenage almost-step-daughter, Britta, and her boyfriend, Ben. They thought themselves pretty clever with this bit of cheer (although they did very considerately leave behind the gift receipt “just in case,” ha, ha). But I’m not one to return a gift.

I admit that at first I didn’t think the leopard skin was me. But then I thought, Hey, what the heck, just because I’m a prim elementary school teacher with three kids and three unofficial step kids and a hamster and a guinea pig who pees on me every time I hold him—does this mean I can’t drive around on fur seats? The truth is, I sort of relish the quizzical looks I get from friends and colleagues. A fellow shopper at the co-op recently glanced in my car window, gestured at the upholstery, and guffawed out loud—and she didn’t even know me. Who foresaw what adventure a little leopard skin could inspire?

I’m even wondering if my bolder, wilder new image was behind a snap decision to book a trip to Florida to see my dad over the upcoming school break. You see, if you’re flexible and a little crazy, you can buy dirt-cheap flights online to Orlando. Mickey’s hometown is only an hour and a half from Apollo Beach, where my dad lives, and rental cars go for less than $30 a day in mouseland. All of which adds up to a low-budget chance to do what my dad has been asking me to do for the last two years: bring the kids to see him. But of course, the whole transaction required a little courage, a dose of optimism, and a Zen-like acceptance of the unknown.

First of all, the web site informed me that the name of the airline and flight times would remain a mystery until, if, and when I made a final purchase. So what the heck, I said, as I typed in a credit card number and hit “send.” My kids haven’t seen their grandpa for four years—our last visit with him was amid the flurry of a cousin’s Detroit wedding. And while I’ve carried the burden of personal responsibility for this hole in my kids’ lives, it wasn’t until recently, when my son wept over “missing” the grandpa he doesn’t really know, that I decided maybe there are three better reasons to visit my dad than my own guilt: Sophie, Max, and Lillie.

Well, my own guilt is pretty potent too, considering I haven’t made the trek to Florida for eight years, despite my dad’s frightening quadruple by-pass two years ago in December. I felt sick over being absent then, being the only child not standing by for his surgery, but it’s more complicated than it seems. At the time, my hair was on fire from the hell of my divorce, and I was careening around like a madwoman trying to put it out. Meanwhile my car didn’t have heat or an engine that started predictably, and drives to work were half-blind endeavors with frost growing on the inside of the windshield as fast as Sophie could scrape it off. I didn’t have the nickels and dimes to fix my car, let alone fly my flaming head to Florida.

I think my dad understood my predicament, although he sounded tight and scared on the phone during those days leading up to the operation. I was scared too. I’d never really gotten to know my dad—not really—and now his mortality was breathing down my neck. I was afraid, too, of burdening him, afraid of the possibility that he might think my frost-bitten forest-fire of a life was a disaster beyond redemption, a failure, a father’s greatest disappointment. This was my fear, never mind the fact that the reason I don’t know my dad much better than Max does is because he and my mom split up when I was two years old and we have spent only a handful of years living in the same state.

All this distance and unfamiliarity made the talks we had in the weeks following my dad’s surgery that much more tender. Having his chest pried apart left him more open, as if all those stitches couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty all the way back together again.

Suddenly we were talking once or twice a week instead of once or twice a year, and when I told him I’d been worried about disappointing him, he gave a small, sad laugh and told me that was the silliest thing he’d ever heard. This was enough bonding to make us both cry before we slid back into our usual awkward passion of weather analysis.

Which, by the way, is colder than usual in Florida at the moment, but he promises that’ll improve with my arrival. And I’m thinking ever since my leopard-skin seat covers, anything’s possible.