Last Drive Of The Mazda5

 One of the things I have written of in the past is realization that we so often miss last moments.

The thought was crystalized for me years ago by a nameless quote that read "One day, you and your friends went outside to play for the last time."  It is simple in words and phrase, but devastating in impact:  Do I remember that last day?  Was I conscious after the fact that such a thing never came again? 

I think I remember it - a Summer's day, likely before my freshman year when my best friend and I headed into the woods, maybe to play some sort of military game or huddle in a tent and play Dungeons and Dragons - but now I cannot be sure.  But then was high school and marching band and drama and new friends; likely the old was replaced with the new.

It is perhaps because of youth that so many of these events slip by us: we become so used to have new events and new firsts all the time that the ending of things somehow gets lost in the background.  We are, all too often, quite unaware of the cessation of things in the blossoming of new experiences.

I would argue that it is only over time that we become attuned to such things: the death of a loved one or pet that happens a short time after we see them, the milestones of our friends and children that come with the sudden realization that we will no longer be driving to that school or watching those games or programs, the leaving of a place, knowing in our hearts that although we might like to return someday the chances we will are quite slim because of circumstances or remaining time or other things we have to do.

And then we enter the retrograde movement of gathering years where the last times become far more prevalent that the first times.  If we have planned well and learned to acknowledge such things, the pain can be assuaged by the memories we have built up.  But we we have not - if we have assumed that everything will continue as it always has - I suspect our lives become nothing but a steady drumbeat of sorrow.

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In the picking up of the new car (hereby known as The Pseudo-Truck; many thanks to friend of this blog and long time reader STxAR for the idea), I had to get the old one back to the apartment.  Fortunately my coworker was willing to give me a ride and so, as soon as lunch hit, we set off.

The drive from work to home is a reverse of the drive to work:  a series of eight to ten traffic lights and three turns (three rights and one left going to work, the reverse coming home) over the course of two and one half miles.  The route is familiar to me; I have driven it now for almost a year, a series of light commercial, condos, and apartments lined with green grades of grass and wide sidewalks and bike lanes.

I am painfully conscious, as I keep checking in my rearview mirror for my coworker, that this is likely the last time I will drive this car.

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The Mazda5 is one of two cars we have purchased new since I started dating The Ravishing Mrs. TB a rather long time ago: we each came into the relationship with a car and, over the years, other cars (all used) slowly rotated in and out of the cycle, a series of vans and compact sedans based on the needs of a growing family and long commutes.

It strikes me now that for Na Clann, this car represents one of the main cars that they will remember as having been in their childhood. For the youngest, Nighean Dhonn, it may be the one constant that she remembers.

Do I remember the cars that we had as a child?  I remember being four or five and my father driving a Blue Chevy truck (likely from the 1950's).  I almost never remember riding in it, only that he drove it to and from work and that eventually the engine blew up.  My mother must have had something to drive at that point - I cannot recall what it was, but I suspect if I were to look in the photo albums now packed up at The Ranch, I would see a photo that would jog my memory.

What I do remember is the gold Pinto station wagon that we bought circa mid 1970's, being put into plastic rising seats (the then version of today's child seats) or - horror of horrors - just sitting in the back of the station wagon. And I remember the mid 1970's yellow Datsun truck we bought, primary so we could get a camper to put on it, and the trips that we took in Home State and across the U.S..

The last car I firmly remember was that of a 1981 Chevy Malibu.  We got it new; it was my father's pride and joy.  It only had to two doors and the front seats that folded forward to allow access to the back, along with its state of the art 8-track tape player.  I also fondly remember it for being the first car I ever drove, the one and only driving lesson my mother tried to give me resulting (I think) in a level for psychic scarring of both of us and the assumption of all driver's training duties by TB The Elder.

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Driving along through the traffic lights and green grass that line the road, I drove the car like every other day I had driven it.

Cars that we drive so often come to seen like an extension of our bodies, something that we seem to intuitively know.  Over the years I had come to understand (and expect) the various creaks as I drove, how to compensate for the slight imperfections and minor mechanical issues that were not enough to warrant going to the shop and could be worked around, like learning to hip nudge the sliding doors on occasion or when to use the brights when the regular lights were dim.  These were all know factors to me, things I did instinctively as I had made my drives over that past 10 years to and from what had become the routines of my life:  work, gym, Iaijutsu, the rabbit shelter. Years and years of creaks and slams and family trips across town, across state, and halfway across the country at least twice to visit our family in Old Home.

All now slipping down to miles, then yards, then feet as I pulled into the driveway.

The end of the event itself was underwhelming; I hopped out of the car and locked it, then ran to hop into my coworker's car so we could hurry down to the dealership to get my car and then get back to work.  And later that day, when I pulled it forward and back a bit to get some cardboard under the tire to get the worst of the fluid leak, it went no more than two feet.

Sic transit gloria mundi. 

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Yesterday was the transfer of materials from the old car to the new car, almost a rite of passage for American drivers of a certain age.  

Out of the Mazda5 came all of the items I had carried over the years: the jumper cables and leather gloves and oil, the small Get Home bag I made years ago and the Mexican serape my parents had purchased in Tijuana and given to me which made a useful blanket I had used more than once, the tire pressure gauge and pens and paper maps (yes, I still carry paper maps) and Gideon's New Testament from the early 1980's they were handing out at high school at the time and my official "right to go to the rabbit shelter" badge and letter from The Plagues circa 2020 stored in the glove box, and the reusable shopping bags and picnic blanket under one of the folding seats.  

Most importantly, and perhaps most superstitiously of all, the faded paper of house drawing and a small neat folded paper flower that had been made by one of Na Clann years ago and left under the other folding seat which I had kept there, perhaps just as much for luck as I did for the memories that they represented, a father's desperate attempt to keep at bay the inevitable adulthood of his children.

At the end of this, I bowed to the car and thanked it for its loyal years of service.  For all that it is inanimate metal and plastic and fabric, it had given us safe transport and memories that would last the lifetime of Na Clann.

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Tomorrow, the car donation people will come by.  We will sign a few papers, they will hook it up and drive away, and we will notify New Home 2.0 that the car is no longer in our possession.  Some 30 days later, the same will happen for the insurance company.  It will be - except for our memories and pictures in albums and on electronic devices - as if it had never been.

We cannot stop time from flowing and things from ending.  But, perhaps, we can at least take the moment when it happens and be grateful for all that led to that last time.