Road Trip

Dear UD,

Taking a road trip with you is better than all the travels in the world.

2006, Lexi and Laina, young girls, giggle in the backseat while you drive with me in the passenger seat.

Like the time when you taught 16-year-old me how to drive. Then, my siblings Sonny and Britt and Amanda sat in the backseat with me in the front passenger seat. Both then and now, we ride curves, glide up and down hills, traveling between the Crawford farm nestled in the Bible-belt of the Ozark Mountains and the Cunningham farm or your welcoming house, both near the greater Kansas City area.

Then, you offered driving tips, advice on how to drive, or how NOT to drive, as we later laughed about when, on that road trip, you missed the sharp turn sign indicating a 90 degree turn and plowed the rental car straight onto the gravel road, into the ditch, landing against the barbed wire fence. Luckily, everyone was fine, and we piled back into the car, driving the dented rental all the way.

Then, we talked bookshelves and jungle gyms (you built for the family), Chuckles (the bean bag throw game that Grandpa Bruce made and you delivered), family stories, garden harvest, and driving tips.

Now, we’re in your light blue 2006 Ford Taurus, sailing the curves and hills between family farms. On this road trip, we talk Broadway shows and musicals in between listening to the Wicked and Into the Woods original Broadway cast recordings. After each number, you pause the CD and interpret the lines for us, and we discuss characters and themes. I know in this moment that I will always remember these road trips with you, these discussions with you, these lessons and learning.

Years later, Lexi, Laina, and I saw Wicked off Broadway, and more years later, Pippin on Broadway. Throughout the years, we’ve watched the movie versions of various musicals from Oklahoma, Singing in the Rain, Holiday Inn, White Christmas, and Annie Get Your Gun to Grease, Hairspray, Billy Elliot, The Court Jester, Mamma Mia, Chicago, Jersey Boys, Newsies, Phantom of the Opera, to Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, Cinderella, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Aladdin, and Anastasia. And so on. Plus, we’ve attended local productions of shows such as The Man of La Mancha and Fiddler on the Roof.

On December 31^st, 2014, we decided to celebrate Lexi’s 20^th birthday at your house; this time the three of us took another road trip between family farms, and that evening, we went to the movies with you, Britt, and Sean to watch Into the Woods. What a thrill to see the story you shared with us so long before come to life on the big screen! Four months later, you left this world, so that was the last movie we would have a chance to see with you. I wish we could see more, but I’m glad the last one was a Broadway musical. And I’m glad that we played Broadway that night, the board game that you created, another memory, another connection.

Uncle David, without you, I doubt we would have our love of musicals and all things Broadway, and I am so grateful to you for teaching us, through musicals, about life and literature and living and loving.

2018, everyone’s talking about Hamilton, and remembering our road trips, I bought the original Broadway cast recording. It arrived this week and sits, unopened, on my dining room table. I am excited to listen to it and explore the story, and at the same time, I wish you were here to listen to it with me, interpret the lines, and tell me the story.

So many things you taught me, but you did not “Teach me how to say goodbye” (Alexander Hamilton, “The World Was Wide Enough”).

But what you did teach, I promise to pass on. This summer, I will take a road trip, play the Hamilton CD, and share it with someone else.

“Legacy. What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see”- Alexander Hamilton, “The World Was Wide Enough.”

UD, your legacy lives on in the lives of your loved ones, and we are all the richer for it.

Love, Rach