The two of us were silent as we got into my car on a wet, gloomy October evening in Los Angeles. This was our last night.

My father was 90 years old. I had moved home four years earlier to help my folks out, thinking he was getting ready to Cross Over. In an ironic twist my mother ended up going first, leaving my father and I to try and sort out the mess that our relationship had become.

I never dreamed it would be so hard to drive away from him. I had planned on leaving earlier in the day, but couldn’t face it. Instead, I took so long finishing the last bit of packing that it got too late. I called him close to dusk to see if he wanted to have dinner one more time.

We had gone through a lot – we who had continued to eye each other like two wildcats, never wanting to expose even the slightest bit of vulnerability; pacing, staying low, ready to pounce if need be. We had each come to our own personal breaking point in the presence of the other. Slowly, imperceptibly, we began to see each other, see that most of the reason for our clashes was because we were actually so…..much…..alike. We had come to a miraculous place, a place I’d never dreamed possible while he was still alive.

We sat in my car and once the doors were shut, were surrounded by silence: car becomes sanctuary. Rain lightly tapped on the roof and windshield. Drops coalesced on the glass until they broke loose and slowly rolled down out of sight. The whole world was weeping for us, in case we lapsed into stubbornness, not wanting to cry. But I couldn’t hold back and tears began to slide out of the corners of my eyes, rolling down my face. I had no idea this is how it would feel to leave him.

Always in the past I had left, slamming some door in my heart, all tied up in knots, never sticking around long enough to let either of us soften up. It took four years and two deaths – two in one year, to wear us down: my mother, then months later his brother. We went through this together. My brother and sister did too, but they came in from out of town for these deaths. Dad and I, we somehow found ourselves on the same side of a line – a surprise to both of us.

Staring straight ahead, sitting in the dark shattered by the city’s brilliant bedtime nightlights, sheltered within the walls of car-turned-sacred house, he spoke quietly, giving up only two precious words: “Thank you.” I could not recall a time that he had ever thanked me for anything out loud, and so they were shocking words to hear. “Thank you.” As I glanced at him, he slid his hand toward mine and for a brief but endless moment we held hands. I believe that when I looked into his eyes they filled and maybe even overflowed.

Still it took me most of the next day to leave. I called to say I was on my way. He was standing on the front porch as I rolled up in my overstuffed compact car. We both knew this would have to be quick – we’d already begun to unravel. I met him on the walk and we hugged each other, something else we just did not do. One last glance, heartbroken smiles, then I climbed into the car that would carry me away from the place I had run from so many times. Now I could barely leave. Rolling down my window I waved and from the rearview mirror watched him walk all the way out to the sidewalk, waving, waving, even as I turned the corner.

I sobbed as my dear, humble little car carried me away.

Hundreds of miles and the moon began to rise. Amidst the wide open swath of land we rumbled through, She, that sometimes shy old woman, appeared over the horizon, enormous and deeply colored in her brilliant wash of light. So gigantic was she when we cleared the first bend in the road that gave her to us, I exclaimed out loud. We were headed, my car and I, away and toward. For the first time in my life I had been able to soften enough to allow my heart to gently unfold, and there in that unfolding I felt the tension, the bittersweet tension, of home on either side of me: leaving home to go home.