In my last post, I said I knew the challenges awaiting Alex in Florida. Here’s how.

In the summer of 1987, I was working for the Shoe Service Institute of America in Chicago’s Western suburbs. I edited their magazine, Shoe Service, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

My boss had just announced his retirement. At their summer conference, SSIA’s board of directors called me into a meeting room and introduced me to Cal Clemons.

“Cal owns an association management firm in Baltimore. His company will be managing the association moving forward and we’d like you to move to Baltimore and continue to produce the magazine.”

So I flew to Baltimore, met with Cal and learned about his company. He told me he would be in Chicago to work on the transition in a couple of weeks and I could give him my answer then.

I decided to move to Baltimore and, on the day before I was to see Cal again, it rained—and rained and rained and rained. In fact, it rained more that day than any other day in Chicago before or since. The final total was 9.35 inches of rain.

Because I was meeting my new boss, I decided to go to work anyway—in spite of warnings on the radio about flooding and pleas for people to stay home. I put on my best suit—this was long before business casual—and headed for the office.

It was a long ride to work on a good day. That day, it was even longer. The radio said to stay off of the expressways, so I tried to navigate on other roads. Because of flooding in different spots, I was zig-zagging my way towards work. After an hour, I made it about 10 miles and I still wasn’t halfway there.

At that moment, I was in a large puddle that didn’t seem that deep—until I looked in front of me and saw a car in water up to its windows a few feet ahead. I decided to turn around and go home.

At the exact instant I decided to go home—while I was still dry and in a working car—an 18-wheeler came flying by in the opposite direction. It created a wave in the water I was driving through that lifted my car off of the ground and set it back down in water that was between two and three feet deep.

You can see where Alex got some of her stubbornness. You may be wondering what this has to do with being alone in a new city.

Fast forward a couple months and I’m living in Baltimore. I’m out on the road one day and my car dies in the middle of the road—goes from running fine one second to completely dead the next.

So here I am, stuck in the middle of the road in a strange city where I know no one, thinking “what should I do now?!”

That was the moment I knew was coming for Alex—being alone in a new city, with no idea what to do next.

If I had thought about it a little more, I would have realized that if I figured it out, she would as well. And she did.

I must have grown as a parent because, two years after Alex moved to Florida, my son, Jake, announced he would be moving to Oregon. I was asked how Jake would handle life on his own. I calmly said, “He’ll figure it out.”

Oh, and when I took my car to be repaired in 1987, the mechanic said there was a computer under the front seat that served as, “the brain of the car.” He said it was horribly corroded but had no idea how it got that way.

“Do you know how it could have gotten that wet?” he asked.

If you’ve lived through a moment like this—as a parent or on your own—I’d love to hear your story in the comments.