Have you ever had a best friend? A friend whom you don’t have to worry about but you do all of the time anyway? A friend who is so in line with your spirit and personality that you can’t wait to see them every time you’ve been apart for more than a day? Well, I met Eleanor two and a half years ago, and as a general rule, I never go more than a week without seeing her.

Eleanor is the sort of friend that most people would only have as an acquaintance; she is not the quickest, nor the strongest, or even the most beautiful. She has more merits than can be seen, they must, instead, be experienced. Eleanor responds within seconds when you need her, the kind of friend that helps you and coddles you through anger and sadness, the kind of friend you can cry into, but she’s also the friend to go to when you’re elated and have just received good news. Eleanor is reliable. The blue haired beauty that she is, this friend of mine, Eleanor is best at relaxing. She has never failed to look and feel calm a day in her life, and that’s why it’s so hard to see her so sick.

Eleanor and I go on drives. I love driving and she loves being driven. Together, since I’ve gotten my license, we must have covered at least 14,000 miles under this arrangement, and I’m almost always the one in the driver’s seat. Well, one late night recently, Eleanor and I were just pulling off of the highway after a long, thoughtful, stressful, and pointlessly circuitous route to Ann Arbor and back to Flint, and, as we rolled across the rough bricks that mark Saginaw Street in downtown, Eleanor began to get sick.

Her behavior changed dramatically and I was taken aback. My heart hurt; I had never seen her in such a state before. I dropped Eleanor at home that night and wished her health. The next morning as the summer was getting hot I visited her, hoping that the sunlight might help her ailments. She appeared as though she had recovered a facade and her temperament had improved, she was definitely the lady I knew, but she sounded awful. She didn’t have the tone I was used to hearing, didn’t have the lazy lilt in the more acoustic sort of communication.

Eleanor only got worse from there, we actually had to call an ambulance for her earlier today, mere hours before these words are hitting the digital page. The doctor at the E.R. called and informed Eleanor’s father, who, of course, relayed the information to me, that she had been living for a while with a heart defect, and, furthermore, that her heart was failing. She had been placed on a transplant list and we eagerly await news of a heart fit for her spirit.

Eleanor, my 1998 powder blue-on-powder blue Buick LeSabre in Custom trim, is my first car and everything that is described above. Her loving family and friends wait eagerly as we begin our search for a new engine after hers, tragically, gave out. Send your love down the line, I can’t lose her yet, I’m too attached.