From Marianne: Goodbye, Old Friend

The other day my daughter said goodbye to her car.

Not at a dealership as a trade in, or someone coming to buy it. She drove an hour to the mechanic one last time because she couldn't bear the thought of it disappearing without seeing it again. The car wasn’t worth repairing. It was 16 years old with issues, and it was absolutely the right decision. But still… she cried.

It got me thinking. What is it about cars? Why do we love these hunks of metal so much?

My first car was a 1963 Buick Special. My little brother drew a devil on the inside fabric, and my teenage friends decided the car's name should be Hell. Are you picking me up in Hell? they'd ask. 

Yep. 

In Miami, with no air conditioning, the name was especially fitting. Hell carried us everywhere. Football games, sock hops, parties, the beach,  double dates, my lunch breaks at Publix, places our parents never knew we went. It gave us teenage freedom and basically some of the happiest years of my life.

(My brother Carlos and me next to the 1963 Buick Special years before we renamed it "Hell.")

Then there was the Austin Healey my stepfather gave me when he married my mom. Then my parents' red Montero that eventually became "the kids' car." We all loved it.

And my stepfather's blue Toyota pickup, the one we called the Lego car. He's been gone for years now. But every time one of us spots that same truck on the road, someone snaps a picture and sends it on the family thread. For just a second it feels like he's still here.

Bob and I weren't any better. We held onto our old SUV years after we knew it had to go. The windows barely worked. It rattled and long trips were out of the question, since it was 26 years old.

We bought it the year before our youngest was born and that truck practically raised our family. Soccer practice, basketball games, theater rehearsals, birthday parties, you name it. It officially seated eight, unofficially… more. Every time we climbed in, one of us would say, "Can you believe this thing is still running?" They really don't make them like that anymore. A few months ago we let it go, just like my daughter did. 

We think we're mourning our car but I think we’re mourning the lives we lived inside it. The little kids and the road trips and the parents who are gone, the drives to visit family and the arguments that got resolved before we pulled into the driveway. Not necessarily the cars themselves.

This is why my daughter drove an hour to say goodbye and thank you. Not to an engine but to the 16 years that happened inside it. She'll soon have another car to make memories in. 

As for me, there will only ever be one Hell.