From the ages 18 to 25, Addie and I were inseparable. It was odd, seeing as it was my father and not me who brought her into my life the day before I started college. I had my heart set on a blue Jeep Liberty (the ultimate teen girl dream at the time), but as graduation passed and the summer waned, I became desperate. My dad kept me on my toes, always saying he another prospect he was looking at before he made a final decision. One week before classes started, I became short tempered and made amends with the fact that I’d probably need my mom to drop me off the first day. Then, at the eleventh hour, on our way home from a day spent at a water park in Ohio, my dad called my cell phone and told me to look in the back yard when I got the chance. It was an odd request but my dad had never been one for conformance. I half jogged, half skipped to our back porch the second we pulled up. There she was, parked sideways, waiting for me. Addie was my 2004 Lincoln Aviator.
Oh how I loved her. I was possessive from the beginning. I branded her as mine with a Notre Dame license plate frame and an Italian flag light reflector. Later on came a Rosary dangling from the rear view mirror and an Arsenal FC sticker on the bottom right windshield. Only I could drive her because nobody else knew her like I did. I washed her by hand at least once a week and used Windex on her head lights and tail lights. I polished and re-polished the steering wheel, I vacuumed all the carpet obsessively, and I took particular delight in how her silver paint always gleamed in the sunlight whether she was newly clean or not.
I missed her most during our first separation in June of 2013 when my family spent two weeks in Italy. At home, she was my escape from the watchful eyes in the house. I could be myself with her. She knew I swore like a sailor when I was angry and silently cried when I was hurt. She knew how I pounded my fist on the steering wheel when I missed my exit and furiously watched for flashing sirens when I ran a red light. She knew I loved how tall I felt in the driver’s seat thanks to what my parents call my “Napoleon complex.” She was big enough to make other vehicles give me the right of way even when I wasn’t supposed too. I stored my textbooks, scrubs, tennis shoes, and snacks in her spacious back seat. I was always voted designated driver on lunch breaks between classes, my classmates piling in before I’d even opened my driver’s door. She safely got me to the soup kitchen in Detroit for my community clinical every Tuesday for 14 weeks, and to Ann Arbor for my very first rotation at 6 am. The furthest she’d traveled was up north to my aunt and uncle’s cabin in Lewiston. I’d had to sit down on the cement in my driveway and individually peel every splattered bug off her front grill after that trek. When we finally sold our house in Dearborn Heights in 2012, my parents used her incessantly: filling, emptying, and re-filling her with box after box on numerous trips back and forth to Livonia. She took it like a champ, delivering us home each time without a sputter. She didn’t flinch when the little girls I babysat decided to play grown up one day and climbed in and out of her driver’s seat parked in their driveway at least a hundred times.
Over time, her age began to show. There was the time I accidentally drove her into our garage door while attempting a spectacular maneuver after being blocked in by my dad’s F-150. The back hatch window cracked down to the rod (mainly due to a design flaw) and would randomly jiggle open from time to time. I had to push the brake practically down to the floor to get her to a complete stop. The air conditioner mysteriously stopped working after the summer of 2014. The engine battery died twice on me in our seven years together. And her gas mileage was increasingly uneconomical, giving me approximately eight miles to the gallon.
None the less, I’m going to miss her. She endured my angst rebel phase, silently observing my dyed black hair and ripped jeans without passing judgement; tolerated the inconceivable decibels I’d blare the radio driving home from work on a Friday night; observed my relief at finally being accepted to nursing school; listened to me practicing questions aloud on the way to my first-ever interview. I loved how she could coast at 80 mph on the highway and not slow down until I hit the brake, and the way she cut through 2 feet of snow like it was butter while everyone around us went into tailspins. She was my partner in my morning coffee runs before 8 am biochemistry lecture and witness to all the silent struggles of boys and friendship.
Emma is my 2017 Ford Edge, my first big-girl purchase. But during that crucial period when I was stuck between girl and woman, Addie became an extension of myself. Some days my brother drives her to work, other days she is parked with a “For Sale” sign in her windshield. It hurts to see her go undriven, parked down the street in front of our empty lot. Today I drove her for the first time in weeks. I took the keys and moved her back into her old spot at the top of our driveway. She belongs there a little while longer.
The Big Three 