Most of us know what it feels like to get our first car. It is something incredibly fun and exciting. I can remember the sheer joy, excitement, and pride I felt when I bought my first car off of my grandfather.
To a sixteen or seventeen year old, having a car is almost a rite of passage. It begins to usher us into those adult years where we have insurance bills to pay and gas tanks to fill. Having a car, in many respects, changes our young life. We have newfound independence and responsibility behind the wheel of that vehicle.
A first car is more than just a car. It can be symbolic for one of the craziest times in our lives, and saying goodbye can be like saying goodbye to a piece of ourselves. The following submission comes from my friend Wayne who writes about the feeling of losing his first car. Read carefully and think about what you might write for your first car because it might bring back more memories than you realize.
Eulogy To My First Car
Most everyone has had to say goodbye to a loved one. Be it a friend that was moving, a pet that had run out of lives or a loved one passing on. I never expected saying goodbye to an inanimate object such as a car could reach this level of emotional distress. To start off, you had the cheesiest nickname ever made, and it actually hurts to think that someday I won’t be able to call you Victor, because you’ll no longer be cruising. Sure, you smelled like a barn, your latches stuck and your exhaust leak made you sound like a hive of angry bees, but we had some good times together. There was that time we raced my friend in his pickup, and your dilapidated frame and rebuilt engine reached 115mph before one of us smartened up and slowed down.
There was that time I had to catch a bus to a basketball game in 15 minutes, but we had more pressing matters, like checking on our best friend’s cousin who’s house had burnt down and who lived ten minutes away. We took that 25mph corner doing 65 and made it back to the bus with 5 minutes to spare. There was your dusty interior, detailed once in its whole existence, and only so my prom date didn’t get dirty. How about that dash? The one covered in stickers from my senior year of football. The dash that brought back a dozen different memories with every sticker. There were all those times that you held my life in your Firestone tires, whether it was because I was speeding through slush or trying to outrun all the problems college presented to me. How about all those late night drives with friends? The drives when we had nowhere to go and all night to get there.
We would talk for hours. Then there were those days when you had nothing to say to those same friends, so instead just cruised down the road playing music out of your one working speaker. There were all those things you’ve been used for, from a vehicle taking me to Vermont for an internship, to reclining into a bed that time we drove to Maine and I was too cheap to get a hotel room. You’ve been everything a car could be Vic. You’ve been the most reliable friend I have ever had, and for that I say thank you and goodbye.
