Car Memories

My heart still does a subtle lurch when a silver Acura MDX begins to approach me in the oncoming traffic. Michael drove a silver Jeep Cherokee for several years then purchased a silver Acura MDX and continued to drive it until January 2011. At the end of January 2011, he purchased a 2011 silver Land Rover, LR4. So safe with all of its whistles and bells to make it safer for driving, including about 8 camera angles that could be seen on the GPS screen and a hands free phone system. (His phone was found in his pocket without a scratch.) None of this works when an 18-wheeler flatbed trailer is illegally parked on a poorly lit road, in the dark, backwards, with no reflectors facing any oncoming drivers.

Any time Michael and I would happen to pass one another driving in and out of our neighborhood, we would back up and roll down our windows for an exchange of smiles, a quick chat and say, “I love you.” I loved it when we would happen upon each other like that. Because he drove the silver Acura MDX for many years leading up to the month before his accident, that is the car which I associate with him. My reflexive memory continues to look to the person driving any silver Acura MDX in order to see if it is Michael. I know it is not going be him, but I look for him anyway. I don’t know why this still happens. Maybe there is this strange thought that we could somehow cross paths, yet in our different worlds, like in the movie with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves called The Lake House.

Car memories…..

His car always smelled like spilled coffee. I could count on finding fresh spilled coffee in the cup holder along with a travel cup with a lid and a mug, which he would have carried out of the house that morning. The back seat would have a sport’s jacket hanging on a hanger…..if there was no jacket, the hanger would remain and bang on the window while he drove. His console would have about 30 of his favorite kind of pen, along with countless little square notes written on his Barranco notecards. Many notes and sketches could also be found floating around on napkins from times when he was out for a business lunch or dinner and would quickly jot down his creative inspirations. In a restaurant, the next best thing to a drawing pad is a paper napkin. (It only works with his favorite kind of pen.) In the far back of his car was the “Boy Scout” Michael. There were the muddy hiking boots that he would wear for on site visits to building projects….slip off the dress shoes and step into the muddy boots…. his white hard hat, a deflated pool mattress to put down under messy things in the car, a couple of bungee cords, some rope, and a first aid kit.

The outside of his car told as much about his life as the inside did. It reflected his life outside of his business world. His car was more often covered in mud splashes than it was clean from riding it into the woods while pulling a trailer with our four-wheeler ranger on it heading out for an adventure of fishing, hunting, or camping with the kids or the Boy Scout troop, of which he was Scout Master. There were a couple a large dents in the back door from when the trailer was not hitched on correctly and rolled into the back of the car. Fishing poles often stuck out of a side window or were angled just right going down the center of the car.

All of these little details rush through my memory in a matter of seconds when I happen to see a silver Acura MDX approaching me or I come upon one from behind. It makes me think of the verse in 2 Peter 3 where Peter says, “With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” Sometimes in the seconds that pass by, as I experience a silver Acura MDX “fly by”, it seems like I have experienced a lifetime. The sights, smells, and sounds rush through me showing me a passed time, it feels like yesterday and yet feels so long ago.