Excerpt from Driving Miss Norma by Tim Bauerschmidt, Ramie Liddle, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

We looked at each other and, simultaneously, we said, "We need to see if she wants to come along."

We had no idea what we would do if she said "Yes."

* * *

The following day, the three of us sat down at the kitchen table to have some lunch.

"Norma, we don't know what the doctor is going to say about all the tests they have been doing," I said between bites, "but I'm wondering how you are feeling about how you might take care of yourself now that Leo is gone."

"I don't know what to do," she said, sounding feebler with each word. "I can't live here by myself. I know that."

Tim chimed in, "Well, Ramie and I have been talking about that too, and we wouldn't feel good about you staying here by yourself even if you had people helping you. We looked into homes and we can get you on a list either here or where Ramie's mom lives in Pennsylvania.

"Or, we were thinking," he continued, "if you would like to live with us on the road, we could get a bigger RV."

"While coming with us might seem like a crazy idea," I interjected, "it's no crazier than spending the rest of your days in a nursing home. If you want to come, we'll take you anywhere you want to go."

We told her she did not have to give us an answer right away. "Just think about it," we said.

We continued to eat our ham-salad sandwiches without conversation. The next person to speak was Norma. She quietly said, "I think I'd like to come along."

The next morning, we sat crammed in a small examination room with a gynecologist and a medical student shadowing him. We had spent the past two days after Leo's death moving from doctor to doctor and from test to test. The ob-gyn was the last one to see.

A handsome man in his thirties, the doctor told us what we already knew: Norma had a cancerous mass on her uterus. From his perch on the edge of the exam table, he looked down at Norma, who was sitting in a hospital wheelchair, and then launched into an assumed close: "So we're going to schedule you for a hysterectomy, then radiation and chemotherapy. You will recover in a rehabilitation facility, and it will likely take a few months to heal." Although he gave Norma no other options, he finished by asking what she would like to do. She locked eyes with him and, with as much conviction as she could muster, said, "I'm ninety years old. I'm hitting the road."

With good reason, the doctor appeared confused. Tim explained that we lived on the road in an RV and that we planned to take Norma along with us for as long as she was interested and physically able.

The doctor's demeanor shifted instantly. He lit up. The medical student seemed amazed—this response was probably not what she had expected from this tiny old woman.

"Are we being irresponsible?" Tim asked. "This approach seems perfectly natural to us, but we don't always live within the rules. What do you think?"

"No," the doctor said, "it is not irresponsible. There's no guarantee that at her age she'd survive the surgery. If she did, she would be in intensive care and dealing with miserable side effects. As doctors, we see the other side of this every day. If it were me in this situation, I'd want to be in that motor home."

"Right on," Tim and I replied.

We had a lot to accomplish in order to fulfill our promise to take Norma on one last adventure. To begin with, we had no idea how long this adventure would last or even where it would take us. But we knew that we had to try.

Excerpted from Driving Miss Normaby Tim Bauerschmidt and Ramie Liddle with permission by HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright 2017.