When I was I child we would drive all night, after many hours of "how much longer?" to which the reply was always, "oh, about 15 more minutes," my sister and I would sleep either on the floorboard of the car or laying in the back window.  If I had lost the fight for the window I would be lulled to sleep by the tha-thunk-tha-thunk of the wheels hitting the cracks in the Louisiana highway.

We would arrive in the middle of the night to my storybook grandma's house deep in the piney woods of northern Louisiana.  We would drive over the cattle guard and up the long gravel driveway past the old gasoline pump to the light on the porch.  As we pulled up to the house my grandmother would step out in her long nightgown and robe with her nightcap and a broad smile on.  She would give us each strong squeezing hugs with much patting on the back and welcome us into a house where the smell of freshly baked pecan pies still lingered from her days labor.  Stacks of pecan pies would be neatly wrapped in foil and tucked away on the counter but, one would usually find its way out before we retired to our pallets.

Tomorrow we will make that long drive again but, this time it will be daylight.  Grandma won't be there to greet us this time.  We are going to celebrate her passing into the Heaven that she sang so beautifully about all our lives.  But, she hasn't been waiting on the porch that way for a few years since she has been in the nursing home. 

Aunt Tambra will be there and all of her kids and grandkids.  Her house now sits just a few yards away from Mamaw and Papaw's old house.  The pecan pies will be the fruit of mine and Emily's labor.  But, the recipe will be the same.  We will be back on pallets in the living room making sure that we don't sleep close enough to Scott that we wake up with our hair twisted into knots.  And, the response to the kids will be the same when they ask, "how much longer?" ... "Oh, about 15 more minutes."