The sky was still ink black where we were in South Africa. My son Ben and I grabbed our flashlights, lighting our way along the walking path to the main building at the lodge where we were staying, ready for our last game drive with ranger Dion and tracker Bongi.
We were nervous after hearing a lion roaring outside our window the night before. We were watching for the little thief monkeys along the path who loved to jump out and scare us, hoping we might drop any food we carried. We were giggling and excited and happy, just plain happy.
We were, for the first time in our lives, adults together. And children together. Equals together. Because for the first time in our lives, I was a passenger on an adventure with my adult son.
I’ve been in charge for so long
Back in our real lives at home, I have always been the decider. The planner of parties, the organizer of road trips and weeks at the cottage, and the one who gives out birthday reminders. Back in our real lives, I am a single mother of four sons who has never handed the reins over to anyone. Back in our real lives, Ben is 30, now a husband. He is a man with his own life. He is trying to make his own plans. He has bills to pay. He is, I am just now realizing, my son in peripheral. I wanted to get to know this man. I wanted time with this man. To look him in the eye, to hear him.
And so, when I had the chance to go on a luxury safari thanks to my job, organized completely by a tour company, something in me released. An exhale. I could let them drive the car for our trip and just hop in the backseat with Ben. If someone else planned the flights, the packing list, the hotels, and all the other details, we could talk. Just the two of us. We could think about what snacks we want to eat, a constant conversation between us since forever.
I was able to learn a lot on this trip
Ben is braver than me. From our first game drive after arriving at our bush lodge, where we stayed in a two-bedroom villa bigger than our first home when he was a baby, Ben was surefooted.
We saw a family of rhinos on our game drive. A herd of curious elephants sidled up to the jeep, so comfortable and relaxed. A cheetah eating a recently killed impala. On our drive back in the evening, a female lion passed us on the road and looked us dead in the eye. I nearly had a heart attack. My son was steady, calming me down. A solid presence in the seat beside me. A shadow of the father he might become someday, on full display in the African wild. And I got to see it first hand.
Ben is friendly. And charming. He and our ranger Dion became friends on this trip. The same age, the same good smiles, the same open-hearted love of nature, bonding them fast and sweet. I watched him chat with fellow travelers, with the bartender, with Dion and Bongi when we had our sundowner cocktails out in the bush. After watching him struggle with shyness and anxiety as a boy, it felt like a miracle to see him now. A confident man.
More on multigenerational travel
If I had planned this trip, I would have been focused on the outcome. I would not have had the bandwidth to just sit by the bonfire with Ben at the end of the day, watching the local watering hole for hippos and giraffes, quiet in ourselves. I would not have been able to fall into bed with that particular giddy sleepover feeling I remembered from being a little girl. Because that was what this trip felt like. Some mom somewhere arranged a sleepover safari for Ben and me for a week. And we just packed our little bags and went off together.
Ben felt it too. As we left the bush for the airport, bumping along the back roads for our final ride in the jeep, the impala were leaping alongside us. He got a little choked up, told me, “I never thought I’d see anything like this.”
I looked him full in his grown-up face, stubbly and happy and grown, and thought, “me neither.”
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