End of an era

Well, it's the end of an era....I just dropped my car off at the junk yard because we are getting a new car this afternoon. I can't help but feel a little sentimental about it. I know it's silly....to feel such an attachment to a car of all things....but I do.

It was the first car my husband and I bought together after I moved to Canada. We brought our baby girl home from the hospital in this car. I remember that night so clearly....it was a bitterly cold February evening and I sat in the back seat with her. She was so tiny...I was so scared. I remember thinking I had no idea what I was doing. We stopped at McDonalds on the way home because I was starving and I was afraid to even get out of the car with her. I felt safe in the car....protected...so my husband went inside and got the food for us. She was fast asleep in her car seat and I just sat there staring at her in amazement.

Fast forward 3 years....I drove her to the emergency room in that car after she decided to do gymnastics in her bed and hit her head on the metal headboard. The doctors at the clinic xrayed her skull and told me they thought she had fractured it...so I needed to get to the hospital immediately. I remember driving there in a state of shock...and panic....her SKULL...I couldn't believe it! I am amazed I didn't get in a car accident on the drive there because I swear I spent the whole time staring in the rear view mirror at her watching her little pale face uncontrollably throwing up into a pail I had brought with. She had dark circles under her eyes and a serious goose egg protruding from her forehead...purple...angry looking. I was afraid.

Fast forward 1 year.....I drove her home from the hospital in that car after being told that she had type 1 diabetes. Again I felt lost....scared...like I had no idea what I was doing. I was afraid of the unknown and worried that I wouldn't know what to do to keep her alive. I watched her sitting in her booster seat...small...once again pale...so fragile looking and yet full of smiles...playing with her collection of toys that always seemed to stay in the back seat by her. She was happy to be going home. She was happy to be in her booster seat...in her car....in familiar and safe territory. That car ride was perhaps the longest of my life. I was in shock and had zero faith in my capabilities at doing this. The very next day, we picked up our cat Daisy and drove her home. She was a tiny fluff ball in the back seat meowing at Emma....her first car ride with us....and she hated every minute of it...but it brought her home to us...to be a part of our family...and our hearts.

Fast forward 2 months....I drove that car to drop her off at school for the first time ever. It was perhaps the hardest thing I've done in my whole life....letting her go....letting her be a kid. It was the first time I made a conscious decision not to let diabetes control our lives. I kissed her goodbye and walked back to my car....my bubble of safety...and I let out all of the tears I had been holding in. It was ok though...because I was in my car....and it was ok.

Fast forward 5 years...to today...I drove that car for the last time to drop my kid off at school. She took her seatbelt off, wrapped her arms around the seat in front of her, closed her eyes tight, and said goodbye to the car....and thanked it for all of the memories and for getting her where she wanted to go her whole life. She got out of the car and shut the door behind her. She walked the path up to her school with tears in her eyes and said she was going to miss our old car. My heart hurt a little as I saw how attached she had become to it too.

I'm ecstatic to have a new car....I can't wait to make new memories in this one and become attached to this one too. But I will always be greatful for the old car. I know it's silly to feel this way about a car....but I can't help it...I'm silly...and I loved that car and all of the memories it holds.