Tin Cans and Rattle Snakes

I used to think that I had bad luck when it came to cars.

When I was sixteen, newly licensed and free to access the world at large, I made the mistake of backing my dad's (newish) '95 Ford Escort wagon into a lovely little red sports car while exiting a parking spot.  The incident, as it was referred to at the time, was something that I was sure spelled the end of my driving career.  Cars, being very expensive, and also potentially dangerous if not handled with the appropriate respect, were a very important thing in my family; my abuse of the new car was something that, at least in my addled sixteen year-old mind, was  going to be epic.  I imagined the return home, telling my father that not only had I driven IN to a parking spot, but I had backed IN to another car.  Somehow my brain had taken me to a point where I would be banished from the family, only to live in unlicensed hell for all eternity.

Of course, it didn't turn out that way.  My dad was very levelheaded with the conversation, as we detailed what happened, and the gentleman I drove into even came calling to speak with him.  The exchange was very calm, very quite and almost supremely civilized.

The suspense was killing me. Surely there would be an epic outburst before my exile?  Surely someone would flail and strip me of my little blue card that otherwise entitled me to roam?

No such conversation ever happened.  I paid for the repairs to our car, and my father paid for the repairs to the other.  He did say, in none-too-clear terms, that if ever he caught me driving into another parking spot, I would no longer be allowed to drive his cars.

That resonated.

Many years later, while visiting friends in Texas, I borrowed a car to go roaming with my friend Cheryl.  It was late, and I was in foreign terrain, not to mention supremely sleep deprived.  At the time, the drive seemed like a great idea, and we set off with such zeal that I had even joked with my friends that were the police to call them, they were to kindly post our bail.

I had been joking at the time.

The drive was really very short and only leading us from our friends' home by two streets, though, the second was a long, isolated road upon which there were few other cars.  The further along the road I drove, my friend Cheryl and I noted how desolate it seemed - only a few cars were passing us now in the opposite direction, and none seemed to be headed our way.

Clear skies were visible - there were no longer street lamps or traffic lights, but merely the glow of the September Texas skies.  It felt like heaven, even though the temperatures hovered near the hundred point, and our poor Canadian systems were nowhere near prepared for it.

Eventually, hoping to procure a street sign in a fit of mid-twenties mid-mid-life crisis, I drove the car up beside our selected sign and crept out of the car only to marvel in the emptiness.  There was no one for miles, and the only thing within sight was a silent dairy farm.

Our robbery would go unnoticed.

Still, too short to reach the sign, I needed to bring the car in closer.  Whatever happened next is really a question for the Gods, because one moment we were on terra firma, slowly moving closer to our goal, and the next, two tires were only perilously resting on the ground, while the other two barely touched.

It took moments before we exited the car, assessed the situation by cellphone light and then promptly decided that perhaps, with a little luck and sheer brute strength, maybe we could *drive* the car out of the ditch, while the other was lifting.  2000 pounds of metal does not move easily - we know that now most certainly.

While sitting in the car, with cellphones that had no reception, and our windows rolled down to try and cool off, we realized there was distinctive shifting in the grass, and a rattle emanating from the area.  We'd heard there were rattle snakes in the area - but did that mean we had company?

Panic struck and we rolled up the windows, sitting in horror waiting for some ax-wielding maniac to come and finish us off - wasn't that what happened in situations like this?

911, being such a reliable service as it is, was thankfully a number we could dial, even in our tin-can death trap, perched in a ditch dangling over a snake pit.  That must have been, at least for that operator, the funniest 911 call ever...

You see, when you tell a panicking girl that help is hours away, things tend to get wrangy.

"Listen, it can NOT take three hours - we're two Canadian girls, lost in the middle of nowhere, we've borrowed our friend's car, and she does NOT know where we are.  We have no cellphone reception, and we have BOTH seen Texas Chainsaw Masacre..."

The tow truck took less then 50 minutes.

In recent years I have had a few more car adventures - though none quite as colourful as that.  My darling Estella, the car I bought what seems like ages ago, has now begun to creek with old age.  When shifting, she sounds as if there are dozens of tin cans trailing behind, and though I've already been in to see a mechanic, major surgery is required.

Still, I won't tempt the fates; already I've had a series of unusual events, and I know now what it's like to be scared and waiting for a fate worse than the ones you've already imagined.  I don't soon wish to repeat that experience.

That's why I still only back into parking spots.

In Memoriam...

I hate anniversaries – of any variety.  It seems a funny thing to say, considering they are typically joyous occasions, however through the years I have found it harder and harder to acknowledge these events without sadness enveloping me.  The thing is, every year older is another year further from those memories I hold dear. 

This isn’t to sound melodramatic – there are so many new memories that are also very dear to my heart, but each year at this time, I’m reminded of another anniversary that reminds me of the way things have changed. 

On August 8^th, 1990, my grandfather died in an accident.  He was 58 years old.  My entire life changed, in ways that I’m still trying to comprehend, and yet, in many ways, I’m sure I never will. 

Every year since Papa’s death has been somewhat of a milestone for me, because, even at 8 years old, I never quite understood how there could be a minute more of my life than my time with him.  There was no conscious acceptance of a life of my own because in I felt as though life was forever the one that he had built for us. 

It sounds crazy and perhaps a bit deluded, but as a child, you have such a strange grasp on reality that the little things that change in your daily life (such as a new car, a new toy or a new home) seem like a huge deal.  Something as massive as death is far too complex to really grasp in any context, aside from the invariable clarity that life will never be the same. 

That notion, as simple as it might seem from an adult perspective, was unfathomable to the 8 year old me who watched the world screech to a halt, all in the course of one day. 

The thing about loss is that it’s so confusing – there’s the strange reality of it that you never quite come to terms with.

When you have someone or something in your life, it becomes so much a part of you that it can so easily be taken for granted; it’s not that you value it less, but you never quite think about those times when it may no longer be there.  Those moments that you have, every day, seem so average and consistent that the reality of the fragility of life can be lost on you. 

But when someone leaves – they die, move away, or move on – those moments suddenly become memories that you now have to re-categorize and reassess.  Moments that were simple points of fact now become elusive and hard to grasp. 

From my own experience, I can say that the loss you feel from that person’s departure seems insurmountable.  It feels as if there’s no way to fill that void without losing them, or losing yourself in the process.  What you used to accept as your world suddenly becomes your world without them. 

And you can’t prepare for the inevitable, no matter how hard you try.  The thing is, there is no imagining a world without someone until they are gone; there is no way to prepare for that absence because you’ll never know what thing you’ll miss most: the way the smell or sound, the bristle of their voice, or the company over coffee first thing in the morning. 

When someone is there, it is just an inevitable fact; when they’re gone, there is no going back. 

Loss is something I’ve struggled with, not because it has been consistent but because it has been overwhelming for me.  Never learning what was ok, I always felt as if there would be no more ‘normal’ left; that with the passing of a loved one, you too began to pass. 

Twenty years ago, I could not imagine a moment even five minutes in the future because those minutes, however near, were minutes without that constant that I had always had.  Every minute, every hour and every day were challenges that I felt completely unprepared to face because if for no other reason than his absence, I was no longer a whole. 

As those minutes moved forward, whether I liked it or not, I began to create new ‘normals’ and I began to appreciate the new days as ones that hurt a little less, and felt a littler fresher.  There was no longer the overwhelming sadness that came in those first few days after he’d gone, and suddenly it became a dull ache that I thought about often, but that I knew was inconsolable. 

Twenty years later, I look back on the years between then and now, and wonder what it would have all been like had the hydraulic lift not failed, had he not been working on the truck that day, or had any other series of events prevented the tragedy from occurring. 

I’ll never know what could have been, and I’ll never have the peace of mind of knowing that I appreciated those moments together before that day enough when they were happening.  My only consolation in it all has been that in the twenty years that have passed, not only have I lost people, but I’ve gained wonderful loved ones in the process; people who I could not have fathomed in my life at that time have now become staples of a reality created in the wake of that accident. 

I might always hate anniversaries and other ‘special’ occasions that I should love; I still see a lot of these moments as reminders of sadness and awkwardness borne of fearfulness.  But, on the other hand, I do try to remember that even as a child, I looked forward as far as I could – a few minutes at a time – and braved what felt like a whole new world ever-changing before my eyes.  And there has been so much good and kindness since. 

Twenty years is a long time – and at the same time it can feel like a minute; life is the culmination of the duality of everything we are able and unable to comprehend, and the way we forge onward.  Try as we might to move on, it is only moving forward. 

Our consolation is, for however long it lasts, we are loved and love others – and we are forever growing into the people we should be. 

A smart man taught me that – and even though all these years have passed, I won’t ever forget the impact he had on my life.  Our time together may have been brief, but it was significant none-the-less. 

Much love and adoration, Papa.  I hope you’re enjoying the view.  X