(Andy and I purchased a new Hyundai Santa Fe two weeks ago and we are both so delighted to finally have a nice vehicle. Andy is driving it and I am still in the huge F150 work truck....but I can handle it just as well as the good ol' boys in town....but still hoping to get something better on the gas budget at the end of the year. )
While sorting and cleaning I found myself getting very emotional. I even had tears in my eyes and I was very surprised by this. For weeks, my little red 2002 Ford Focus has been nothing but trouble and a big unreliable mess. So how could something I thought I hated bring so much emotion?
I felt like I was losing a member of my family or a great friend was moving away. I felt a huge sense of loss. All these little memories kept coming to me. This was my first car. I remember the very rainy Saturday in May when my Dad and I purchased it. We had been several places and I was very discouraged because of the rain and our price range. My only criteria was not white and four door. I joked that I wanted something four door because I planned on keeping it until the wheels fell off and that it would someday need to hold a car seat (and it actually did!). I remember looking at this red Focus in Nashville with a sticker price of $11,000 but the savvy and ballsy shopper that I am had proof of an ad that had it listed for $8,400. So the little red focus that I was not overly impressed with came home with us.
She carried me back and forth to college countless times. She was there during one of the most spectacular and divinely mysterious moments on the way to my grandfather's funeral (*see next post for details and chill bumps). She was with me during my first tee tiny fender-bender. She carried me to my college graduation. She was with me during wedding planning and carting wedding supplies. She took us to our honeymoon. She was there for an all girls weekend in Savannah. She reliably got us to our first real grown-up jobs. She was packed to the brim when we moved into our first home. And she carried our beautiful baby boy home from the hospital.
I never named her as some people do with their cars. It took me a while in the beginning to warm up to her, but through the years she definitely proved to be worthy. She was just a plain Jane,no frills or shine, but she was tough. No marks from the fender-bender and only a small dent from a huge tree falling on her. I have felt such stress and anger towards this little red car lately but in reality she lived a good life and completed her job accurately. She just got worn out. Her motor mounts broke, her axle sagged, her battery died, her alternator stopped, her motorized back windows stopped performing long ago, and she had a huge wrinkle in her windshield. Her time had come. She can finally rest.
I know that I am going to miss her dearly. I feel a great amount of gratitude for the trips and memories in my life that she carried me to. I know that she was only an object and that it is the people that I love and the memories that I made with them that I cherish but in some small way that little red car played a part in making them happen.
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