Leaving You Behind
Chapter 2
On a very sunny Tuesday in June of 1997, I packed up my Rubbermaid boxes in the 1985 Chevy Caprice Station wagon and left my home in Illinois. I had left a note for my parents who were not at home at the time, my dad was volunteering at a local native American site and my mother was at a school administrators academy in the capital city. The note I wrote in short said that I had failed at my attempts to become a real adult in Illinois so I was leaving for Alaska with the hopes of becoming a real adult in the North Woods. We then drove to the capital city ourselves to register the car in his name and to get some supplies from a big box store for our trip. Our plan was to drive straight through. From Illinois to Fargo, North Dakota cross into Canada and take that all the way to White Horse which is just on the other side of the boarder from Alaska. Now mind you this was all pre- 911 and all you needed to cross the boarder was a birth certificate and a valid licence.
We started our trip at around 5pm on a that Tuesday leaving behind us the capital city and by 7:00 am on Wednesday we were crossing the boarder just north of Fargo North Dakota. I was done crying and was ready to start my adventure, on the way to the boarder we found a few roaches in the ashtray and had a celebration about being on the road. Once across the boarder, the country looks much the same as it does down here, rolling farm land and green pastures. By night fall we were half way there. On Thursday morning we stopped here and Jacques called his family.
They wanted to know why I came with him, they wanted to know if we were okay and that my dad was frantically looking for me and that I should call them as soon as he got off the phone with his parents. Now mind you I am 19 years old, so I called home and talked to my old man. I heard fear in his voice, I realized that the past few days or 72 hours had aged him. He was sad I ran, he wished he could have seen my anger and pain. He told me he had felt the same way when he was 19, because he was getting ready to go to war. He told me he loved me and that if I wanted when I got to Alaska that he would wire me money and I could come home. He told me he was sorry and that he was angry, but to BE SAFE, NOT GET MARRIED, and to NOT GET PREGNANT. I promised him that I would be safe, I would not get married, and that I had no plans on getting pregnant. I told him I would call him when we made it to our final destination, Fairbanks, and that I loved him but this was something that I needed to do, for me. He understood, but then told me my mother was in despair and asked how I could ever do this to her? Well, I told him that was easy, she never told me about the cancer and she fought her demons on her own so I guessed I would too!
After three days of driving straight through, we crossed the boarder at Whitehorse in the Yukon on Friday afternoon on our way to Fairbanks. We arrived Friday evening, in Fairbanks to our little cabin in the woods. It looked like a clubhouse, I wished I had pictures of it, I have other pictures but none of the cabin. We went into town to find a laundromat with showers, because we did not stop the entire time while we were on the road to shower, only for gas and to pee. We also needed water and groceries, as this cabin only had electricity.
stay tuned for more, I am nearing the end of my school year and I have been very busy, hopefully summer vacation will bring time for me to write more, it makes me feel so good!
