What My Father Taught Me Between Miles

Creative Nonfiction – Memoir / Reflective Essay

When I look on those desert highways of my childhood, I see my father’s weathered hands on the steering wheel and the soft glow of the late afternoon sun dancing on the dashboard. We’d be somewhere in southern California, heading to visit relatives, with the road stretching out like a quiet promise. The hum of the engine comforted me, and in those moments, my dad and I would talk about school, how the world worked, and life’s uncertainty and infinite possibilities. Sometimes, we’d go silent, letting the steady beat of tires on asphalt speak for us.

One afternoon, he shared a memory of his older brother, Louie. They were kids then, eight and six years old, standing at the edge of a busy street. Louie – the “wiser,” more daring one – charged across first, confident as can be, while my father stayed behind, his heart pounding with every whoosh of passing cars. Louie shouted back, telling him to close his eyes and run when he said so. And when that moment came, my father ran, legs pumping, breath catching in his throat, trusting Louie’s voice more than his own fear. He never spelled out the lesson, but I realized that day how sometimes the people who guide you can carry more weight than the doubts that hold you back.

It was in those miles of nothingness that I learned how everything can matter. You might think such a trip is all about the places you reach, but I realized the heart of it lies in the conversations shared between father and child, in the gentle exchanges and easy silences. Those drives taught me what my dad hoped I’d someday understand: life isn’t measured by where you end up but by the bonds you form on the road there.

Author’s Note

I wrote this piece for a creative journal assignment on theme, but it quickly stopped feeling like an assignment at all. Revisiting those long drives with my dad reminded me how much of who we become comes from the quiet, ordinary moments… the ones we don’t realize are shaping us until years later. These memories still echo through my fiction, in the relationships I write and the characters who travel uncertain paths with someone they trust beside them.

Photo: Jplenio1