It was between Covid lockdowns in 2020. My daughter was struggling to care about online schooling. As a distraction, I suggested a driving lesson in my old car. She had her L-plates (临时驾驶许可证) but was unwilling at first because she has never been a fan of not being able to master something quickly.

Teaching a child to drive requires patience and a calm voice. After a week of car park driving, I told her to hit the road. During the second week of driving lessons, she mastered turning and finally remembered to take the handbrake (手刹) off before speeding up. By the third week, her fear had gone. She even wanted the radio on while driving. I told her she had to reach 10 hours without incident and then she could listen to my choice of music.

Each day, we’d drive for hours. It reminded me of all those trips when she was in the passenger seat and conversation would flow. Sitting side by side, she’d tell me many things. Now it was my turn to talk.

For the past year, we’d lived through hundreds of days of restrictions. With my daughter learning to drive came laughter. The more she drove, the more she loved to drive. In all those hours of watching my daughter learn something, and revel in it, I’d handed her the reins (控制权).

My daughter has booked her driving test. I’ll miss the hours we’ve spent, sitting side by side, learning something new about each other.

Mom was a teacher most of her life. When she wasn’t in the classroom, she was educating her children or grandchildren; correcting our grammar; starting us on collections of butterflies, flowers or rocks; or inspiring a discussion on her most recent “Book of the Month Club” topic. Mom made learning fun.

It was sad for my three brothers and me to see her suffering in her later years. At eighty- five, she suffered a stroke and she went steadily downhill after that.

Two days before she died, my brothers and I met at her nursing home and took her for a short ride in a wheelchair. While we waited for the staff to lift her limp body back into bed, Mom fell asleep. Not wanting to wake her, we moved to the far end of the room and spoke softly.

After several minutes our conversation was interrupted by a muffled sound coming from across the room. We stopped talking and looked at Mom. Her eyes were closed, but she was clearly trying to communicate with us. We went to her side.

“Whrr,” she said weakly. “Where?” I asked. “Mom, is there something you want?” “Whrr,” she repeated a bit stronger. My brothers and I looked at each other and shook our heads sadly. Mom opened her eyes, sighed, and with all the energy she could gather said, “ Not ...was. Say were!” We suddenly realized that Mom was correcting Brother Jim’s last sentence. “If it was up to me…”

Jim leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Thanks, Mom,” he whispered. We smiled at each other and once again shook our heads.