A gentleman with whom I was having a conversation the other day was lamenting the sale of his old car.
He was saying things like how silly it was of him to have these kinds of feelings about a car, but they’d been through a lot together.
I didn’t think it was silly at all; I’ve had an attachment to every vehicle I’ve ever owned. Two of said cars caused me to actually cry when I parted ways with them.
I told him I’d feel exactly the same way once my current ride is on the way out of my life, but I didn’t go into detail as to why.
Of course, like my other cars, I am very fond of, very attached to this car – a 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport.
Bret and I picked it out together and even flew to Nebraska to get “her.” (This specific model was just over the border in Iowa.)
Our daughter named her “Hello, Kitty.”
She has truly been an honest-to-goodness family car.
But there’s another reason…
On the day Bret ended his life, he did so in our garage, sitting in our car.
I heard the bang and went to the garage to look.
Sure enough, in the driver’s seat for the last time, there he was.
Later that day, a company that I had no recollection of contacting came to get the car and do a professional clean-up. I didn’t know the extent of the damage, and I didn’t want to. Not being in my right mind, though, I let this company take it, as I didn’t think I’d have it in me to drive anywhere, anyway, for a while.
Two days later, the car was “finished,” and somehow I wound up at the police department impound lot where they had it ready for me to pick up.
A good deal of the carpet and parts inside the driver’s side door had been removed.
“No matter,” I thought. How was I supposed to keep this car now? I would just try to sell it as is.
As it turned out, I was in no position to purchase another vehicle. My husband had just died, and I was now down half my income.
And the more I thought of it, the sadder I got about the idea of parting with it.
After a while, I no longer wished to replace it…her.
After all, we have been through a lot together.
I still drive the car, and she is getting up there in miles.
She’s over thirteen years old now and has had a few ups and downs over the years.
In a not-so-distant future, I will be looking for her replacement, and truly, the last connection of my life with Bret will become undone.
Some may see my continuing to drive the car as morbid, but honestly, it was just necessity. Then it became sentimentality.
Regarding the strange company that took my car for cleanup: They tried to charge me $1500.00 for what they had insisted they do.
I fought with them for a few months, saying that I didn’t even have any recollection of ordering their services, let alone reading the fine print.
Eventually, they stopped bothering me, and it has never appeared on my credit report as an outstanding debt.
To this day, I have to wonder just what that was all about.
Also, to this day, the driver’s side floor has no carpet, and the last CD he ever put in the CD player is still in it.
—
A brand new Hello, Kitty at her first home in Texas:
And of course, I got a poem out of it:
