Not That Way

People trust me for lots of things—to keep a secret and read a MyChart, to plan a cousin week and apply for long-term health care benefits, and to lead workshops and speak to groups. But there’s something no one trusts me to do. Not my parents or my husband or my grandkids. And not my friends.

All of them know this one thing about me—that I can’t find my way, almost anywhere.

Back in the pre-GPS days, I drove twice a week to graduate school. And each time, a card with directions is what got me there: Take I-70 East. Keep left to continue on I-670 E. Follow signs for airport. Take Exit 2B to merge onto OH-315 N. Take Exit 3 to Cannon Drive. Turn left into the Ohio Union North Garage. By the time I earned my masters diploma, the card was tattered.

One by one, my grandchildren learned to mistrust me, usually around the age of five.

When I was in the driver’s seat, they’d sit up straight, their eyes alert.

“Not that way, Grandma,” one would say. “This other way.”

Even at the zoo and in parking lots and on walks around town, they watched and corrected my path.

And my dad. He just can’t understand this lack in my brain.

“For how organized you are …,” he mutters when I turn the wrong way once again.

Usually this is not on the road, where the GPS now maps my way. It’s me pushing his wheelchair out of Coumadin clinics and doctors’ offices and through hospital hallways.

But he’s known since I was three that the spatial orientation part of my brain is missing. And he’s found a way to get himself where he needs to be. He sticks out his left hand or right, as the need may be, and points.

So I’m set with my dad.

And with my grandkids, who now take the wheel and the lead, no matter where we go.