Mother was set to take the minivan on Monday and drive it 1,279 miles down the I-95 South to Miami Beach, with Brother Yoely in tow.

Though they’d done this before, somehow Father suddenly found the prospect unappealing. Mother shouldn’t be traveling on her own. Brother Yoely was special, and very special at that. So Father turned to me and said, “You’ll go.”

Say the word “Florida” and I become warm, fuzzy, and dewy-eyed. I thought it was a great idea. There was just this little problem — I had a day job.

But Father insisted.

Sunday found me recruiting friends. On Monday, I finagled a week off from work, then booked tickets for the return flight with my friends. Tuesday afternoon, we jammed the car with boxes: insulated bags and mini fridges stuffed with cold cuts, hot dogs, rolls, tuna cans, salad, fruit, and junk. Then Mom, Yoely, Mimi, Sury, and I crammed ourselves in, and we were on our way.

It was seven hours of laughing until we cried — and plenty of traffic — before we reached Richmond, Virginia. In a cozy Holiday Inn, my mother put her persuasive powers to work and soon we had the hotel’s pool opened for our private use.

We were 19, raring to go, full of huge, pink, fluffy dreams. But that night we were just kids in the pool, splashing and laughing, while my mother prepared turkey sandwiches.

We didn’t get a head start the next day, but nobody cared. My mother drove and drove, down the winding highway, while thunder cracked and rain skittered off the windows… and then past the storm to sun and perfect sky.

We talked, argued, debated, munched, and sang, while Avraham Fried’s “Ahallela, ahallela es Sheim Hashem!” floated through the speakers. Again and again, because my brother had set his heart on the song just then, and he has always been the undisputed king of music options in our home. We heard one song, that one song, the entire way down to Miami Beach. All 21 hours of it.

There were a few more delays: We ran into tire problems sometime around North Carolina, and we took a whole bunch of breaks, doing photo ops and enjoying long, wonderful lunches. Spicy tuna from Mimi’s provisions, sweet, yeasty rolls, peppery salad, rounded off by some chocolate rugelach (this was still before we turned into carrot juice people).

Wednesday night had us rolling into Savannah, Georgia. But hotels number one, two, and three were not inviting enough — no matter it was past midnight. Finally, we settled in a Hampton’s Inn, checking in, lugging all our goods upstairs, and barricading the door with furniture, because Yoely had this escapist tendency and two tables and a chair in the doorway kind of discouraged that.

I don’t know what time it was by then, but Mom whipped out her tiny burner, put up a pot of hot dogs, and sometime later, we savored a hot dinner, plus rolls and ketchup and mustard and pickles.

On Thursday afternoon, we spotted it: “Welcome to Florida!” We would’ve sang some sort of celebratory prayer, but “Ahallela” was still going strong. Just five hours to go till Miami Beach.

(Excerpted from Family First, Issue 597)