Nobody tells you it will be this hard. There's a multitude of books and articles that explore that bittersweet letting-go aspect of mothering -- that simultaneous tug of pride and loss as you wave your kid goodbye on her first day of kindergarten, first date, first solo drive. And what hasn't been said about that absolutely heart-wrenching trip back home after leaving her at the college dorm? But no-one ever tells you how hard it will be to say goodbye to your 15-year-old minivan.
If there were no new car to replace the old one, that would be one thing - an expected void - but right here in my driveway, right beside the old minivan that is waiting for its final tow, is a Jasmine Green Subaru Forrester, a car I have long admired from a distance. Admiration and love, however, are two very different things.
Our 2000 Toyota Sienna has 267,830 miles on her odometer. She has an impressive collection of dings and dents, a back door you can't open from the outside, a trunk that got stuck in the locked position a week ago and a driver side window that has been temperamental for years. You can open it easily enough, but it takes hours to coax it closed. And it won't roll back up for my husband, only me, because I know how long to wait in between closing attempts. Most recently, she had a heart attack of sorts - her engine gave out. She had gone as far as she would go.
You'd think we'd have named our minivan sometime over her lifespan, but we never did. Despite the fact that she got us safely where we needed to go for so many years. She's the one who drove my son and daughter to their tiny country school in Escondido - nearly half an hour each way -- from elementary all the way through middle school. They had a system for who'd sit in front and who'd sit in back, much like their systems for taking out the trash, feeding the pets and the distribution of Halloween candy. When they were younger it was a privilege to sit up front next to me. Adolescence heralded a new kind of competition - who'd get the privilege of the back seat.
Looking back, I realize how much we talked on those long drives. We talked our way through the Harry Potter series and the Clinton Lewinsky scandal - it's easier to answer questions about oral sex (kids were more innocent in those days) when you're wearing sunglasses, gripping the steering wheel and staring straight ahead. On 9/11, my hands trembling on the wheel, I had no answers for their questions and longed for the innocence of the Clinton Lewinsky days.
Our minivan was a never very clean, blue-gray holder of Us: our damp bathing suits, our bean and cheese burritos, our drooly pets. It drove us to see the sun rising from Zabriskie Point in Death Valley and through the fairy tale outcroppings of Bryce Canyon. One hot summer day, after valiantly huffing and puffing her way halfway up the Grapevine, she overheated and refused to budge and everyone was extremely grateful for all the snacks and water I'd packed. I mention this because my never leaving the house without an emergency supply of food and water and blankets and flashlights and band aids was something that my family enjoyed snickering and bonding over at my expense. Nobody ever turned these snacks down yet there was something so mom-like, so tease-worthy about my preparations for disaster.
I've hung on to my mom van long after it's essential function was over: transporting young people and their stuff to various places. There were practical reasons for this: it's great to drive a car that you don't have to make payments on, but there was more to it than that. I just wasn't ready to let go of an era.
There are all kinds of worthy causes that we could have donated our minivan to. But it was obvious which one it should be, considering that my closet companion for so many years was National Public Radio's Terry Gross.
A few hours before the towing guys arrive I empty the van. Because the trunk no longer opens I climb into the back seat, lean over and pull stuff out. I pile everything on the cement beside the car. My long lost key chain with its flashlight, side 4 and 5 of a David Sedaris cassette, a recipe for stuffed cabbage rolls, 16 ballpoint pens (five of which work), dozens of filthy ancient pennies that I want to toss but my husband insists on keeping, old maps. Wedged in the drink holder in the rear passenger seat is a carefully folded piece of paper that I open and read. "Thank you for the ride. I will miss you." In childish handwriting. In recent years I've had other people's small children riding with me from time to time, and I think I know who this sweet, shy note may be from.
Although it's a grey day the two towing guys wear dark glasses. They wear their life stories tattooed on their arms, their calves, their necks. They are men of few words. I take photos as they hoist her up, which seems somehow undignified. A light rain falls and I hold onto my husband's arm and wipe away tears. If there were to be a song to accompany this melancholy scene, it would of course be Barbara Streisand's The Way we Were. Nostaligia never includes the tantrums, the fights, the tears, the miles of frozen silences. No, just as Barbara sang, it's the laughter we will remember, whenever we remember, the way we were.......
It's been a week since they took away our old car. Did I mention that my pretty new jasmine green Subaru is all wheel drive? That she makes the most effortless U-turns? Have I told you how luxurious it feels to do my drive through banking and be able to unroll my window instead of getting out the car to do it? We have plans, as soon as the weather cools, to drive to Borrego Springs and do a little offroading, and when it gets even colder we're going to drive somewhere where there's snow and not have to worry about chains. I love my new car. Did I mention that I've already named her? Princess Jasmine.