Today I Said Goodbye to an Old Friend

By Kim Michael A Story form December 20015

Francis Mayer once said in her book “Under the Tuscan Sun”, What is a house? Is it four walls or is it what they contain? The Native Americans believe that there is a kind of life that is in all things and like humans, at some point, they become greater than the sum of the parts that make them up. The difference between a house and a home is the life that it contains, and I suppose the same thing can be said of many things that come to be more than just “things”. With that in mind I wrote this small piece about something that became more than just a “thing” in my life.

Today, I said goodbye for the last time to a friend. I went to the holding lot where they tow wrecked cars after an accident. I went there to get my belongings before it was shipped off to the salvage yard, and to pay my respects… and maybe whisper a prayer of thanks.

It happened last Saturday morning. Driving home from the gym I came to a blind intersection where a huge Bread Box Quick Mart sign obscured the line of sight from both the road I’m on and the one the girl who ran a stop sign was on. She hit me head on. The impact was so great that the two cups of coffee that I had just bought at Star Bucks, still in the drink holder vaporized instantly, sending a cloud of Christmas Blend (with whole milk) and Vanilla Latte through the entire front passenger area of my Hyundai Sonata..

The girl that hit me was turned a full 180 degrees from the direction she was going. My air bags did not deploy, but her’s did. The seat belt that wrenched my ribs and torso probably saved me from going through the windshield. We both walked away, the girl that hit me and me, but both cars were totaled.

I know it is a little foolish, and maybe a little sentimental, but that car was maybe the best car I have ever owned. With 176,000 miles it looked and drove like the day I bought it with little more than oil changes and regular maintenance.

And when push came to shove, it took the brunt of the blow so I could walk away unharmed. They say the greatest gift that one can give is your life for another. My friend, the car, did that for me. And now it is headed to the junk yard.

I heard once that the eskimos used to take their dying elderly and put them on ice floats and push them out to sea. They would fall asleep in the cold and gently slip into the ocean, and there, as the sentiment goes, their bodies would feed the creatures that would one day be food for their children and grandchildren…and in so doing, live again.

I hope my little car will be remolded into something new and wonderful and worthy of the gift it has given me. Goodbye my good friend and if I haven’t said it…thank you.