The Tits

"flash" back to the last mile.

Even at the start, I was thinking of the finish line.

I thought about the last day of my trip on my first day on the road, and almost every day after that. I imagined what it would feel like to drive back across the causeway into my hometown and park the car. To know I had finished the mission. I had hit all the states. I had found more good.

I’d even picked the song: Ozzy Osborne's “Mama, I’m Coming Home.” I played this scenario out in my head almost every day. I’d picture driving that last mile, singing along with Ozzy, and feeling immense accomplishment. “Soon,” I’d whisper to myself after unpacking my car each night, exhausted, heading into a home to tell my story for the umpteenth time. “Soon, this will be over, and you can rest.”

Hundreds of stories. Hundreds of homes. Hundreds of emotions. Wake-up. Drive. Listen. Cry. Take a photo. Exchange information. Hug. Say goodbye. Have no stories. Have too many stories. Try and fit it all in. Remember to sleep. You only have so much time with the people, don’t waste it. Never sleep. Live in the moment. Try to stay alive. Try to process emotions. “Soon. Soon, this will all be over, and you can rest.” You will be on that causeway blasting Ozzy out of the window.

“Here I come, but I ain’t the same.”

1,127 days after departure, I was finally headed toward the finish line. The trip was over. I had posted on Facebook I’d be driving through in the afternoon if anyone from my hometown wanted to celebrate the final mile with me. I had a story to collect on Long Island, and a reporter from Newsday had met me for coffee beforehand. I told Joe my story over a double espresso, and then he packed up his audio equipment and followed me to Platt Place.

A woman with striking blue eyes and wavy brown hair greeted me when I arrived. She was effortlessly beautiful and exuded a warmth I could feel when I walked in the door—it was almost as if she had walked straight out of a Hallmark movie. She smiled widely, welcomed us inside, and hugged me. I instantly loved her. A few other women and some children greeted me, too, and I looked over at a table full of bagels, lox, cream cheeses, and danishes.

Jennifer Miceli started the Belle Voci Intergenerational Women's Choir in honor of her mother, who died of cancer. “Being a musician, I felt channeling my grief through the music would be the healthiest way to process it,” she told me. The Belle Voci group puts on concerts each year to raise money for prevention and a cure for cancer. Jennifer was the last story I would collect on my journey. Hundreds of stories. Hundreds of homes. And here I was, in the home of a Long Island woman whose story was born from her mother’s death. A woman who wanted to help people who were going through what she went through. It felt so symbolic. So poignant.

A few group members and Jennifer assembled around me after we talked. Some of them were young individuals around my age who were undergoing treatment for cancer. One of them had her daughter with her. Another girl in her twenties had lost both parents to cancer already. Despite her odds, she was bubbly and sweet and still joyful. Each member was part of the group because they had been deeply affected by cancer. I watched from my chair as they huddled together and started to sing.

The song they picked for me was “Time to Say Goodbye.”

I still tear up when I think about it.

I listened to them belt out the lyrics in Italian as I sat there in awe, taking it all in. Imagining what they had been through. Knowing what I had been through. And here I was on the last day of my trip. A trip I did for my mom. And it was time to say goodbye.

I took a photo of all of them on the stoop outside Jennifer’s house before I packed up my car. And then, I hugged them goodbye and jumped back in the driver’s seat. It was the last time I’d leave a story. I stopped at the gas station a few minutes later and filled my gas tank for the last time on the trip. And then I drove. In silence. For the last hour.

It’s hard to describe what I felt that day; everything moved so quickly. Coffee. Interview. Tell your story. Listen to a story. Listen to their song. Cry. Get back in the car. Cry. Get gas. Drive. Think about that last mile you are about to drive. Think about your first day on the road three years and 31 days ago. Think about how you did it. You did it. You did it.

I drove across the causeway around 3:20 pm on Saturday, November 30, 2019.

As I pressed play on Ozzy, a sea of faces appeared. I couldn’t believe how many people came. I had my phone set on the dashboard to video the moment for me, and as I started driving and people started jumping up and down waving at me, it fell over. I never touched it. I can barely watch the video because it’s so upsetting that it suddenly goes black right when the people come into view.

I let the phone sit on the ground and drove slowly, waving to the people. I can’t remember much from it because I was so nervous to hit someone, but I remember smiling. In one of the photographs from that day, I have a smile like my mother’s painted across my entire face.

I picked up speed after I initially passed the large group of people. Halfway across the causeway, I suddenly saw a small group of high school friends. I remember seeing them clearly and waving to them as I made my way to the local firehouse. We were all going to meet there for a little celebration. A friend’s mother had made a cake (which included a perfect drawing in icing of my mother’s signature that I have tattooed on my hand, along with an icing drawing of the Hawaiian girl I had on the car’s dashboard.) A local family band came with their instruments and played during the party. And there was plenty of champagne to toast to the journey. I just had to finish the last mile. I was so close.

I figured that was it after I passed the group of friends halfway. I had one minute left before I could park the car. Champagne was seconds away. But as I rounded the last bend, I noticed a truck. A huge banner on the side of it read, “Nik’s Wish.”

Nik’s wish was one of the stories that impacted me most on my journey. A woman named Kelli in Rockford, Illinois, started granting wishes to kids 18-24 in honor of her son. Her story will be told in the book.

I stared at the sign in disbelief. Kelli Ritschel Boehle had traveled to Orient, New York, to see me cross the finish line. Hours to an airport in Chicago, a flight to New York, and hours from the city to the causeway I was driving on now. I could not believe she was here. I scanned the group of people standing on the back of the truck until I finally found her. All 5’1” of her jumping up and down waving to me. Her dark-rimmed glasses moved up and down with each jump. Her blonde hair just long enough to be pulled back from her face. I locked eyes with her, smiling so hard it hurt. And then, in a flash, my entire trip began to run through my mind.

I was so busy all day I hadn’t gotten to process this moment properly, and now that it was here, it was overwhelming. Every challenge, every sad story, every trauma I heard, every hug I gave and received, every home where I stayed, every person who cheered me on…I suddenly felt it all. It crept into my throat, and my eyes started to well up. If I had let the tears loose, I might still be crying today. It was a paralyzing moment to suddenly feel everything all at once.

But I never had to. Something else happened at that moment that shocked me straight out of my sadness.

Kelli Ritschel Boehle lifted up her shirt and showed me her boobs.

It happened quickly. Besides me, only her husband might have noticed. (Hopefully, not the police officer leading the way for me.) But that moment, in the last forty-five seconds of my trip, that moment meant everything.

Three years of travel flashed before my eyes when Kelli flashed me her tits. Tears had started forming in my eyes when I scanned the truck, looking for her, and as we had locked eyes, she did the one thing I needed most. She brought me back down.

Because those tears wouldn’t have stopped if they had started, and it was like she knew how exciting the moment was, but she also knew how heavy it could be. She was a mom. She had buried a child. She knew darkness. She knew how unfair and painful life could be. And yet, she created something beautiful to give back. To honor her son. And even more, she showed up. For everyone in her life. But that day, for me. And she did the best thing anyone could ever do when life is complicated, sad, and overwhelming.

She made me laugh.

There are four billion memories I have from my journey. Some of them come back to me vividly, some in waves. Some find me randomly as I’m talking to a stranger. Some have disappeared. But those last forty-five seconds of my journey are as clear as day. And when I think back on the last moments of my trip, I am no longer sad that it’s over. I don't dwell on how often I cried or the details I may have forgotten.

I think about Kelli Ritschel Boehle’s boobs. And I quietly laugh to myself. How lucky I was to find people like her in this world. How lucky I was to make it home.

Photo of the final mile thanks to Jeremy Garretson.

Kelli greeting me at the firehouse on November 30, 2019, after flashing me on the causeway a few minutes earlier. Moment captured thanks to Randee Daddona.