Why am I crying? Tom is at the dealership working out a deal for his new car and the thought of my old car being traded in is making me cry. “Am I going to have a chance to say goodbye to Gwen?” I ask him over the phone.
She is red with a pink trunk and the back seats once black now a light gray, both from sun damage. There is rust here and there and and a thin layer of paint missing from this spot and that. She shows here age around the moon roof where the paint has worn thin from years of brushing off the snow. But looks aside she is mechanically sound. And served me well. She has gotten me from here to there and back again.
At the time my roommate Mickey would recite the “tray tables and seats up” announcement like a flight attendant on a plane as we approached our apartment and I closed the windows and moon roof with the touch of a button.
Tom taught me the beauty of down shifting on curves and ramps.
I played my Madonna cassettes so many times that they just plain wore out.
I got caught speeding at least twice, maybe three times. (And once today in my new Civic.)
I loaned her out so a colleague could teach his daughter how to drive a standard.
Nine years and four months later she is all cleaned out and ready to be traded in to the same place she was purchased from by her original owner. I guess that gives me some comfort. That she has made it full circle. She, my car, has made my life fuller. She has made my life funner.
Goodbye Gwen.