Category: car accidents

So I’ve been super busy and I’m a little late catching  up on This is Us…

I didn’t cry when Jack Pearson rescued his family from the fire. I didn’t cry when he went back into the burning house to save the dog and a pillowcase filled with memories. I didn’t cry when Rebecca crumpled into a heap when she saw Jack died alone from a heart attack in his hospital bed. I didn’t even cry at his funeral.

I’d say I held it together pretty well during the the most traumatic episode of This Is Us. Until…

That damn scene in the car salesman’s office. Someone please explain to me why I fell into breathless sobs during a scene about a car?

But it’s not a scene about a car. It’s a scene about everything…

As soon as Randall spilled the soda all over the back seat and Jack turned around to glare at him my eyes welled up, but it was Jack’s voice-over that got me crying. The notion that every stain, every scratch on the family car is a “battle scar.”  I get this, because so much of family life is a battle — small ones usually, but sometimes the battles are huge and they leave scars on our flesh, fabric or fender.

For years our family lived in a huge sprawling city and so much of our lives wound up happening in our car. That car — a 2002 silver Mitsubishi Montero Sport — carried us through fifteen years of everyday errands and epic, cross-country road trips — oh, the amazing road trips! The spills and throw up and sand and mud and crumbs and stains! Plus the life moments and great conversations and arguments and plans!

That silver Mitsubishi Montero Sport was the first new car we ever bought. We needed a car larger than my Corolla SR-5 after the birth of our son. We needed something with a functional back seat. I remember being pregnant and waiting at a red light, looking at all the large SUVs that surrounded me. I thought, my little car can get swallowed by one of these things. I wanted something safer. In the words of Jack Pearson, I wanted us to be okay.

The plan was I’d keep the car sixteen years and then give it to our son. Sometime during the car’s fifteenth year, after it outlived our son for five years, I accidentally drove it going 5mph into a pole in the parking lot at Kohl’s. Nobody was hurt but the front end caved in. Our insurance company said the car wasn’t worth much (to them) and totaled it out.

My husband wondered if I hit the pole accidentally on purpose. (No.) He asked if I realized we were getting close to the time we said we’d give it to our son (I did.) He wanted me to get my eyes checked. (I didn’t.)

But maybe there is such a thing as accidentally on purpose.

Every once in a while in family life something comes up that marks the end of an era — a birth, death, graduation or moving houses. In a smaller way, even changing cars. Jack Pearson tells the car salesman that the Wagoneer he’s about to buy will someday tell his family’s story just by looking at it. I get this — we had a whole story planned for our Mitsubishi — but it never happened. Our car’s intended story never came to be.

I hate change. It’s exhausting. Our bodies age and change. Our hair grows and thins. Our clothes fade and fray. Our relationships…well, don’t get me started, those constantly change. Our family changes, and this is the hardest one for me to get used to. I miss the past before all the changes happened. I miss my parents. I miss my son. I miss the way things used to be.

Maybe, at some level, it’s possible I wanted to end an era. How could our Mitsubishi outlive our son? Maybe, at some level, I didn’t care that my attention was focused on looking across the parking lot for the exit rather than seeing what was looming immediately in front of me. One rule of Karma is there are no accidents, but don’t tell that to my insurance adjuster.

I understand what it’s like to want to be okay. At first it seems like a mediocre goal — one even I can reach. But it’s not easy. I should know. I’ve been trying to be okay for years and I’m not there yet.

Could it be possible I slow-crashed my car to get closer to being okay? Sure, there are easier, smarter and better ways to change cars.

But like I said, it’s not really about the car.