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Keys Are Wings To Fly

Tribune photo by SUSAN M. GREEN

Edie Restall has spent the last year teaching her daughter, Tamala, how to drive. Tamela is now close to taking her driving exam.

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By SUSAN M. GREEN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 10, 2008

GIBSONTON - Edie Restall sits on a curb in the East Bay High School parking lot, taking bites from a sandwich in a fast-food wrapper, while her daughter talks to a friend.

"She won't let me eat in her car," Restall explains.

Is that the rule in Mom's car?

No.

It's not fair, Restall concedes. But this is 16-year-old Tamala's first car. She has had it for a month. Her mom understands.

Tamala is almost ready to take the road test for an operator's license. It has been a year since she got her permit and Restall started riding shotgun with her daughter at the wheel.

That was scary.

"It was, 'More road, less grass,'" Restall says, recalling that her progeny had a tendency to hug the shoulder a little too tightly.

Tamala remembers it differently:

"It was, 'Get in that lane. No, no, don't get in that lane. There's a car coming.'"

"I make her very nervous," Restall says. She demonstrates the petrified passenger clutch of an armrest in her daughter's car. "I'll be like, 'Slow down. Speed up.'

"And, you know, I hate back-seat drivers."

Tamala's dad is on the road a lot for work, so driver training has fallen largely to Mom.

That's OK, Restall says. Mother and daughter say the on-our-own feeling has brought them closer.

Restall worries about her daughter getting her license and driving to school alone every day.

"I just want her to call me and tell me she's OK," Restall says.

But a part of her looks forward to the freedom. For years, Restall has juggled working a full-time job with chauffeuring her daughter to extracurricular activities. Soon, Tamala will drive herself.

"I'm nervous about her driving, but it will be a big load off."

Coaching her offspring from passenger to motorist has been challenging. But it's not the toughest duty she's pulled.

"The only thing worse than the car was the first college we visited," Tamala says. A high school junior, Tamala is scouting for a campus to call her own after graduation.

"I cried," agrees her mother. "It was just the moment. ..." Tears well in her eyes and she collapses for a second on her daughter's shoulder before making another attempt.

"It was just the moment when you realize your baby's not your baby. And I know she's going to fly.

"When she leaves, I'm going to cry."

Reporter Susan M. Green can be reached at (813) 865-1566 or sgreen@tampatrib.com.

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