The knuckles of my right hand were the color of sugar cubes, clamped so hard onto that plastic “oh-crap” handle above the passenger door that I thought I might rip it clean out of the liner.

My oldest girl came home from her first year at college, her mind crammed full of high-dollar French philosophy and the finer points of nineteenth-century Russian literature, but she had apparently left every single bit of mechanical intuition somewhere on the interstate near the state line. She merged into oncoming traffic with a serene, terrifying confidence, quoting Kierkegaard while treating the brake pedal like an afterthought. I don’t take heart medicine. I never have. But about three miles into that little excursion, with the engine whining and a concrete mixer bearing down on our tailgate, I started wondering if the local drugstore did curb-side delivery.

It hits you hard, when it finally hits you.

For twenty-odd years, I was the man behind the wheel. When we had five little ones piled into the back of the minivan that smelled like stale Cheerios and melted crayons, I was the captain of the ship. I made the rules. I set the speed. If somebody crossed the line, I doled out the consequences, swift and certain, right there from the front seat. And I did it because I loved them enough to keep them from flying out the windows or hurting one another.

But time has a way of slipping the transmission into neutral when you aren’t looking.

Now, I’m relegated to the passenger seat. My title has been stripped down from Lawmaker to Advice Offerer. I’m mostly a consultant whose fees are strictly optional. Sometimes they listen, nodding along with that polite, distant pity. Most times, they just step on the gas.

The real trouble, the thing that keeps a man staring at the water stains on the ceiling at three in the morning, is that I am no longer the one handing out the punishments. Now, the world delivers the consequences. And the world don’t love them like a daddy does. The world doesn’t pull over to the side of the road to let them cool off, and it sure as hell don’t forgive them when they cross the yellow line.

So, I worry. I worry until my chest feels tight and my throat feels dry, and then I do the only thing a man in the passenger seat can do. I pray.

People look at the old folks, the ones who line up for daily Mass every single morning when the sun is just a bruised purple line on the horizon. They wonder why those old men and women drag their creaking bones into those cold pews day after day. It ain’t just out of habit. It’s because their children won’t take their advice anymore, and they’ve realized they have no choice but to bypass the middleman.

When you lose control of the wheel, you have to take your case to a higher authority, and hope to God He’s a better driver than the one sitting next to you.