My Hero

The other night, the familiar tune of I've Got a Crush on You drifted from my pocket.  It was Blythe calling.  In the midst of wrestling my flight case into a dark cockpit, I wasn't able to answer it.  Once in my seat, I returned her call.  The conversation began as it usually does.  'Hey there.'  'How's it going?'  'Everything good?'  That is, until she told me that she had been in an accident.  I knew from her calmness that everyone must be okay.  I asked anyway.  "Who was in the car?  Is everyone okay?"  My stomach sank.

"Everyone is fine."  She assured me.  "But the Corolla is, well, dead I'm afraid.  We hit a deer, baby.  It was a ten-point buck, actually."

My imagination snapped to what sort of damage a buck can inflict upon a small commuter car.  Images of the animal smashing through the windshield and into the cabin filled my thoughts.  The mere idea of anything bad happening to the three people who were in the car made me nauseous.    Jakob, Elliot and Blythe were driving home from my mother's house when the deer darted through the darkness and across the highway.  My entire world was in the car.

Even after her phone call ended and Blythe had assured me that all was okay.  My imagination continued to generate scenarios that could have happened with only the slightest difference in her reactions or in how the deer impacted the car.  Hitting one of the many huge oak trees that line the highway or a telephone pole is all too plausible.  It would only take a flick of the steering wheel in the wrong direction, and things could have been infinitely worse.

Today, I went to the lot where the wrecker driver deposited our car.  It was my first viewing of the car since the accident.  It was a bit like seeing a friend in the last of days of life.  The damage from the deer was far worse than I had imagined.  I stood and looked at the car who treated our family with such compassion and sense of duty.  It was not unlike a dear old friend who had always been there to help.  Even after we recently bought a newer and much nicer Camry, and the Corolla had long since been entirely paid off, we simply could not bring ourselves to sell the Corolla.  It was, after all, a family member.  We intended to drive it until it simply would no longer run, until the engine seized or the transmission disintegrated.  But with more than 296,000 hassle-free miles on it, we weren't sure that day would ever come.

I removed our belongings from the car and thought about the day in 2003 when Blythe and I bought it new.  But today I sat in the driver's seat and looked at the shifter knob.  The once-textured rubber of the knob is now smooth and shiny from eight years of shifting through its five gears.  I unscrewed the worn knob from the gear shifter and slid it into my pocket.  Although we signed the car's title to the salvage yard so its parts could be used as scrap, the shifter knob will stay with me.  And when I look at it, I will always remember the best car I have ever owned.

Thank you, little Corolla.  For everything.