Permanent Changes

Today I gave G's car to a family friend who is in need of one for her new job.

One of the first things, practical things, I thought of after he died was giving away the car. An extra car means double the insurance payments, double the maintenance, double the city registration and licensing fees. And it had been so seldomly used this year that the battery had died while G was in the hospital (in fact both car batteries were dead in one day because I had left the light on in the other car... a crappy day of starting cars in the rain (thankfully my parents were visiting) on my way to visiting my husband in the hospital)). Maybe that's why it was on my radar of things that needed to be taken care of. I was having to drive it around weekly just to keep it from running out of battery.

I thought I would give it to family (it was given to us by my grandmother) when they were in town for G's burial - but no one needed it.

Then things got complicated with trying to get the Title from both of our names to just my name (via mail... in a pandemic... with the Titling office having a COVID breakout and shutting down).

Then suddenly things happened quickly.

The new Title arrived on Thursday.

I spoke with the family friend at 1pm today. Everything was ready to go on her end and she was here 30 minutes later. By 2pm G's car was gone.

And I felt so sad. Not relieved at all.

A huge feeling of loss. Like letting go of the car is admitting that he's gone.

The car doesn't represent G sick (like so many other things do), it represents him healthy.

Grandma gave it to us in 2012. On the brink of so much hope on our life. After his transplant, before a big move and pregnancy. Things were on the upswing.

It replaced our other car that we purchased from my brother and sister-in-law in 2008 - the same color, make and model - just a different year. So pretty much from the beginning of our marriage - aside from the first year with a car that cost us $500 cash- we've had a gold Ford Focus.

That car is just "us".

I found one of his favorite CDs in the CD player (which was a gift for Christmas a couple years ago because the original CD player stopped working and he loved to burn CDs for the car). I found empty snack bags rolled up and tucked into the pocket on the back of the front passenger seat - which is such a G solution to snack trash (especially snack trash that he wanted to hide from me). There's a sticker (still) on the wheel that our friend put on the car to prank him. There used to be an American flag sticker on the back but he ripped that off because he can't stand overzealous patriotism that cares about America and no one else (my grandfather was a WWII vet so that sticker made sense for my grandma but not for G).

Now we need 1 car. Because there is 1 adult. I'm it. The SUV is it.

Big, permanent changes. Big permanent loss.