License Woes

For the past week or so, my Mimi has been under a constant shroud of worry. (No, her health condition has vastly improved, and she will be seeing her new cardiologist this Friday to talk about the prospect of a pacemaker, and she is happy about it.)


She let her driver’s license expire and this has been vexing her since the moment she realized it. Actually, it expired back in March, but she didn’t realize it until her best friend and she were talking about licenses a couple of weeks ago, and how her friend recently got hers renewed. This prompted Mimi to examine her license to see when hers expired. This was when she made the alarming discovery. So, when she went to Hennessey to get her hair done, as she does every Friday, she stopped by the tag agency to get it renewed. Simple enough, right? No, not at all.

As it turns out, the Oklahoma legislature has recently passed a new law stating that, instead of the old one-year grace period on expired licenses, it is now a 30-day grace period. Being that her license expired on March 31, she was long past the 30 days. After the grace period has passed, it is required that you provide a birth certificate to receive your new license. Once again, it sounds simple enough, right? Of course, it is not.

Enter problem number two: my Mimi was born at home (on a farm near Goltry, OK) in 1918 with only a midwife and her parents present, and therefore has no birth certificate known to her. The nice lady at the tag agency gave Mimi information about obtaining a certified copy of a birth certificate from the Department of Vital Statistics. This was when Mimi, who was very troubled, called my mom. My mom comforted her with the fact that we would get a birth certificate for her, no matter what it took. So, last Monday, my mom, Aunt Pat, Mimi, and I all made a trip down to the DVS, because the website stated that the process could take 4-6 weeks if we sent the form in by mail or about an hour in person, so we decided to bite the bullet and go down there. Also, my mom wanted to get hers and my dad’s birth certificates, because she had wanted to do so for the past four years.

Before we left, everyone we told informed us that we should be in for a long wait, a very long wait, at that. When we finally got there, we headed into the building with a couple of bottles of water, some granola bars, and hopeful hearts. (We were in it for the long haul.) We got there early, which was great because there were only two other people in line at that point. After filling out some paperwork, getting a number, and going to the cashier, (a process that only took five minutes) we went into the waiting area for the birth certificates. We had barely sat down when our numbers were called, so we were trucking right along. My mom got hers and my dad’s certificates in a matter of seconds, while we were told to talk to a different guy about Mimi’s certificate. The man nicely told us that it was highly doubtful that she had a certificate, but nonetheless was having a manual search done as we spoke. He also mentioned that his records showed that some of her siblings had had the same problems in the past. We were told to wait in that area until the manual search was complete, at which time we would be called into a private consultation room with the results. After about thirty minutes of waiting, we were called into the room to be told that Mimi has no birth certificate on record.

Honestly, my mom and Aunt Pat had a feeling that there wouldn’t be one, but were unsure as to what would have to be done if that was the case, which was their main reason for wanting to go there in the first place. Mimi was terribly upset by the news, as could be expected. The lady informed us that she could have a birth certificate made, called a delayed birth certificate. This required three documents stating her age, with one of those three showing a connection to her parents. We were told that she could use one of her children’s birth certificates (how convenient that we had my mom’s right there!), her marriage license, and either an affidavit from someone who knew my great-grandma when she was pregnant with Mimi, or a Numident, which has something to do with Social Security, either of the last two showing her connection to her parents. That was when Mimi became even more upset, because, although she has her marriage license, it went through a torrential flood that smeared some of the writing. Also, she planned on bringing it with her, but forgot it. Furthermore, she didn’t know anyone who was older than her, being that she is 93, who knew my Grandma Hajek when she had Mimi besides her two older brothers, both of whom are deceased. Yikes…

By this point, Mimi was in tears and was literally shaking. She was frustrated, and I could understand why. This was when my mom and Aunt Pat did what they do well, they comforted her, telling her that we could go to the Kingfisher County courthouse on the way home to get a copy of her marriage license, and we would just try to get the Numident from the Social Security office during the remainder of the week. She was still upset, blaming herself for the whole thing because she let her license expire. We kept reminding her that our trip wasn’t wasted and that we did get my mom’s birth certificate, which actually helped the process.

After getting some lunch and a few things from Sam’s, we headed to Kingfisher to the courthouse, and successfully retrieved two copies of her marriage license. After my mom and I got home, my dad thought of a woman (who is 98 years old, and of sound mind) who just might have known Mimi when she was born. Also, he asked the question that was on everyone else’s mind: Why are they making a 93-year-old woman go through this monstrous process just to renew her driver’s license?

We all know that that is just the way that things work, but it still seems senseless. The only places Mimi usually goes are to church on Sundays and to get her hair done on Fridays, weather and health permitting. On occasion, she drives to other places, but she never goes very far. Also, she never drives after dark, just for personal comfort and the fact that she doesn’t see as well as she used to at night. In her 77 years of driving, she has only been stopped once, and, even then, she didn’t receive a ticket. She has never been in an accident, and doesn’t drive when she doesn’t feel well. She is a good driver. However, “they” do not know this. Also, if told all of this, there would still be nothing that they could do, because it’s one of those things that if you do it for one person, everyone would give them the same story. Don’t forget about the laws, either.

Anyway, tomorrow, my mom, Aunt Pat, and Mimi will be returning to the DVS to try again. During this process, people have asked why she couldn’t use her Baptismal Certificate as a form of identification, as she did when she and my grandpa Rudy applied for Social Security. Apparently, she could have, had she wanted her certificate about a year ago. Also, another person asked why she didn’t just use a passport as secondary identification to renew her license in the first place. Shortly thereafter, said person came to the realization that a birth certificate is required to obtain a passport, thus beginning the vicious cycle again.

My mom made the comment last week, “Most people my age are trying to get their parent’s license revoked. I’m doing everything in my power for her to keep it!”