The Rest of the Story

There were a lot of questions about one of my previous posts.
Most were along the lines of  "Can I borrow your car?"
or
"Is that really your husband's car?"

So, I thought I'd share a little more.

Stick with me on this one, okay?

In 2004 we found out that my Mother-In-Law was sick. "Grammie" had just spent 2 weeks taking care of my baby while I flew to New York to train for a new job. I spent a lot of time in denial. It was easy to push aside the scary thoughts. I had a 9 month old baby, a new job, had just suffered another miscarriage, and well, everything else that comes along in life. She lived for 4 more years with pancreatic cancer and we were lucky to have that time.  She died just before Christmas, 2008.

We spread her ashes along the Oregon Coast the following March, and spent a week with family.  We laughed and cried and did those things you do when you're saying goodbye.  And then somewhere mixed in with the sound of the waves crashing, the wind blowing and the kids playing just outside the beach-house door, we heard Grandad say "the doctors found something."  And our spirits sank.  And then rebounded.  Surely not, I thought.  We just lost one, we can't lose another.

(2002)

But the leukemia was there; aggressive and ugly and unfair. Before he could even complete one round of chemo, we got the call. I looked at my Husband and realized that he and his brother didn't have their parents anymore. So, there we were, less than a year later, back on the Oregon Coast in the bright, warm sun. We laughed and cried and did those things you do when you're saying goodbye. The trips are so similar that sometimes they become one in my memory.

A few weeks later the shipping company brought the car.  We cried again, and drove her around just like Grandad would want us to.

Then one day I realized that every time I went into the garage, I was talking to her. A car.

It was my way of talking to Linda and David, I guess. 

(David and I, 2002)

David built this car, changed her paint colors on a whim and drove her very fast. 

(Those are only a partial list of things he was really good at.)

David and Linda in 2004 (with a black paint job and before he changed the body style)

 When the idea presented itself to reinterpret the car, I jumped at the chance.  I know 'furniture as car' is probably an odd concept to most people.  But, both are curvy and masculine and perfect in their own way, so it works for me.

Because sometimes a little red sports car isn't just a little red sports car.