Requiem

I was at the mall when my phone rang. Bill had decided to replace his old van, and he needed my Social Security number to complete the transaction. I was a little surprised that he was buying a new van without letting me know, but I gave him the info and then, in a small passive/aggressive gesture, bought a pair of truly hideous leopard-print fuzzy dice to hang from the rearview mirror of the new vehicle.

Twelve years and 150,000 miles later, Bill removed the dice, along with all of our other personal possessions, and traded the van in for a new car. The van had been limping along for about a year, and finally it breathed its last. We had to let it go.

While it wasn’t altogether unexpected, it did feel sudden. The poor thing had been through the ringer.  Over the years, rust spots seemed to bubble up out of nowhere, eventually eating away at parts of the metal. The big scratch on the side: yeah, that was mine, acquired in when I sideswiped a support column in a Chicago parking ramp while shuttling a group of Girl Scouts. During the past year Kelsey was primary driver on the van, and she did her share of damage. The van wasn’t pretty, but it had a lot of heart, and in the end it was its heart that gave out.

Trading in the van was a more emotional experience than we expected, like a death, but on a small scale.  At some point, the van became a member of the family. Maybe it was during the day-to-day trips to school, to work, to church, to the grocery store, with the kids fighting in the back, as kids do. Maybe it was while it pulled our camper up to Ludington, where we spent fall weekends enjoying long walks and smoky campfire talks with friends, and where the van got a few dings as we learned how to connect it to the hitch. Maybe it was during our family trips to Florida. Each of those trips was special, but one was special for a different reason; my stepmother was failing, and we weren’t sure if we would get to her in time to say goodbye. The van sped through Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and the whole length of Florida, and each mile we prayed that my stepmom would hold on. Our prayers were answered. We were able to have meaningful conversation with Mickie before she died—a gift from God.  A month later, the van carried us to the cemetery where we laid her ashes to rest.

We took our last trip in the van just over a year ago, when we all traveled to Omaha for our niece’s wedding. It was our first, and probably last, trip as a family of seven, and we thought it might be long and boring. But we had a great time together, safe and snug in our aging minivan.

In a few weeks we’ll drop the kids off at college, and for the first time, we won’t have the van to help us. I’m sure we’ll manage, but it is forcing us to think of things differently. That’s not a bad thing. We look forward to better gas mileage, a little more space in the garage, and that, at least for a while, we won’t be slapped with $1,000 repair bills.

We will miss the van, but as we roll on into our future, we bring our memories with us, grateful for where we’ve been and who we’ve been, and excited to see where our new vehicle will take us.