Gert

Ten years ago I got a call from my mom telling me it was time for my grandpa to stop driving.  This time, he knew it.  The proverbial straw was the day that he did not stop the car in time and bumped into the shared wall between the garage and kitchen.

His decade (plus) battle with Lymphoma -- years of chemo and radiation -- had impacted his stability, and his driving just wasn't what it once was.  Part of his deal to stopping driving was that he wanted me to take his car.  At that point, I was living in Massachusetts and he was still in the grand state of California.  With my mom's help, he shipped the car 3,000 miles east.

This is Gert.  She's a 1997 Chevy Lumina.

Gert arrived in Massachusetts with 38,000 miles on the odometer.  The first six years of her life she had tooled around good ol' Yuba City.  Mostly trips back and forth to his favorite breakfast haunt, Bonanza. Over the next 10 years, Gert was the steady Eddy of our cars.  Our Chrysler Pacifica would crop up with random (major) repair needs while Gert just ambled along.  Starting four years ago Dora would tell me we needed to replace my car. Time to step it up from the really old (old man) car.  But I fought it tooth and nail, she runs like a dream, despite the now lacking air conditioning.  That's why God created windows, I'd say.  She's the cheapest car we'll ever own.  One major repair in ten years outside of regular car maintenance.  Even our mechanics toyed with us replacing the Chrysler before replacing Gert.

This year though, Gert started to rust.  The paint started to peel off and well, she's nearly 17 years old.  And so we started the great car hunt and eleven million bad experiences later (and, I can just keep driving Gert comments from me) we finally bought another car.  So it is time to send Gert off to her next life.  With her age we decided to donate her rather than use her as a trade.

Today Gert was picked up and will be auctioned off by Donate for Charity.  The proceeds of the auction will go to the Yuba-Sutter United Way.  It seemed fitting to donate back to the city my grandparents called home for so many decades.

I'm not going to lie, it was really, really hard to say goodbye to this car.  My grandpa died shortly after he sent me the car.  This was a pretty tangible way to stay connected to him even years later.  I like to think he'd be pretty proud of me for hanging on to her for so long.  I hope, wherever he is in this universe, that he has some inkling of how much his gift helped my little family.

When the car arrived in Massachusetts, the center console had one of his glasses cases and a roll of Lifesavers.  Those stayed in that console until I cleaned it out yesterday and will be taking up residence in the new car.  Guess I'm still not quite ready to say goodbye entirely.