Some months ago, in Ketchikan, a 92-year-old driver struck and killed a woman in a crosswalk. The state’s consequences for the driver were to rescind his driver’s license. What, I wonder, have been the extent of the natural consequences for him and his family? Somewhere, somebody is thinking, if only I had taken Dad’s keys when I had the chance.

My own father was a bit luckier in this regard. He was probably about eighty when he drove home, parked the truck on a slope, and stepped out, forgetting to put the truck in park. The truck obliging rolled down the hill, crashed into a tree, and never again moved under its own volition. Daddy made the wise decision at that point to stop driving. Of course, he no longer had a truck, but I think he would have made the same choice either way. When discussing the incident, he grinned and said, “The Good Lord tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Gimme them keys, boy!’”

I imagine there are metaphysical signposts everywhere for us to see if we are paying attention. The trick, of course, is to know which are genuine and which are some cosmic being’s attempt at a dirty trick. Did that poor old man from Ketchikan first get a gentler message about his driving? As an avowed agnostic, I try not to delve too deeply into the religious implications of this issue, but still. . .and of course there are many, many issues in life that are analogous to the issue with the keys. When, exactly, is it time to move on from this or that?

I think my father took comfort knowing that his friends and family were no longer worried about what might happen in a crosswalk and were happy knowing that they could drive him places. He helped many people in his life, and they loved a chance to return the favor in a small way. So, as I continue thinking out loud, I will look to the transitions in my life not as a giving up of something, but as an act of replacing something old with something new and better.