Total loss

You might remember I wrecked my car last week. I was at a four-way stop and just zoned out for a second and hit another car coming through the intersection. No injuries, no air bags deployed, and yet today my car was deemed a total loss.

This morning, I went to the collision center to get all of my personal belongings out of my car so they could release it to the salvage company. Imagine my surprise when I came across Joe’s reading glasses in the glove compartment. He kept them there so he could read a menu whenever we went out to eat. And inevitably he’d leave them in my car, forgetting to actually bring them into the restaurant. And then there was the paperwork from us purchasing my car four years ago. We paid cash for it. Like literal cash. Dealerships hate that by the way! We looked like drug dealers lining stacks of hundreds across the finance manager’s desk. We laughed about it all the way home in my new ride.

This morning, I sat in the front seat of my beloved and broken SUV in the middle of that body shop and cried.

The words “total loss” knocked me to my knees today. It reminded me of my Joe. To look at him lying in that hospital bed the doctors never imagined his issues weren’t so great that he couldn’t overcome them. His family never imagined he wouldn’t be able to get better.

I never imagined he would never be riding home in my car again with me.

Grief is so weird. It’s just a vehicle, and it can be replaced. But leaving it today brought back all the memories we’ve had in that car. All the road trips we took, the nights he drove me around during my anxiety attacks, every drive home after one of his surgeries or chemo treatments, all of the late-night ice cream runs, trips with the dogs to the vet, even a few make-out sessions.

Leaving it there was like leaving another piece of Joe behind.

It’s not just the car that’s wrecked today.