Well here I am again writing an article on a flight back from Chicago on this Queen’s Parade Sunday. Y’all probably didn’t know I’m a Jetsetter. I flew to Chicago last Tuesday to celebrate daughter Emily’s fortieth birthday. I haven’t spent a birthday with her in a very long time given the distance which causes me much regret. I wouldn’t have missed this one for anything in the whole wide world. Not even the Sugar Cane Festival could keep me home, but I had plenty of remote instructions for doctor regarding decorations, and he came through, and he wanted me to be sure to mention that.

Whilst planning my trip for the birthday about three months ago I also accepted a babysitting gig for my two grandchildren while she and her husband would be vacationing in Cabo San Lucas.

As for me, I went to LaFonda for my fortieth, I think, and to quote Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, “Thus began the longest journey of my life,” due to the dropping-off and picking-up of eight year old Eve and four year old George smack dab in the middle of downtown Chicago.

You’re talking about a girl who rarely crosses the bayou.

So for three months, I’ve lived with doubt, anxiety, panic, nightmares, and a touch of covert bribery. Well at least I thought it was covert. During that time I invented a plethora of things that could go wrong on my watch. What if someone gets sick? What if someone gets hurt? What if I don’t know how to get to an ER? What if I get in an accident? What if I have a flat? What if the car won’t start? What if they don’t want to wake up? What if they don’t listen to me when I’m trying to get them ready for school? What if I forget their book bag which I pictured being a bag with a book in it. What if my second grader has Math homework, and more than anything else, what if they’re TARDY, because in my day if someone was tardy it meant you came from a dysfunctional family, although we never used the word dysfunctional. As an aside it would’ve been nice to have a book bag when I was in school instead of that elastic band thingy that could put an eye out if it came loose.

I drove with Emily every morning and afternoon to practice her routine, which is the routine of all routines, and on the last day before Cabo she took the passenger seat and I took the driver’s seat and drove there and back.

Thank goodness we weren’t in London with that wacky steering wheel on the wrong side of the car. Not only does one have to watch the road in Chicago, but one has to watch for All-Way signs, aka, four-stops, but one has to look out for crosswalks along with the rite of entitlement bikers who think they’re all that, and rude drivers who blow their horns if you’re driving under eighty-five miles per hour. It’s the first time I ever considered a Baby on Board bumper sticker.

Thank goodness I didn’t need to resort to that, but I did think more seriously about spray painting, “I’m from Louisiana and don’t what what I’m doing,” on my back window. And by the way, my covert, or not-so-covert bribe was promising Doctor he didn’t have to go on our family beach trip and he didn’t have to join us at Lake Michigan if he just came with me to Chicago, and then I kinda cried, and he caved.

It was an exhausting three months.

I got home after the Queen’s Parade Sunday was sugared out and I didn’t get to give Brother Bo a hug. We decided years ago that people hug too much and we’d only hug each other on the Sunday of the festival, but I crossed the street this afternoon and we pretended it was Sugar Cane Festival Sunday and hugged.

We also have a tradition of saying the same two words to each other during the Sign of Peace that came from Miss Sharon Morgan’s father wishing her the Sign of Peace. He’d say, “Hey Sharon,” so that’s what Bo and I say, just in case y’all were wondering.

PHYLLIS BELANGER MATA was born at the old Dauterive Hospital and grew up on Wayne Street. She is a 1974 graduate of Mt. Carmel Academy and is a chili dog “without the wiener” aficionado.