As If I Needed Another Reminder

As my journey to healing continues, I find that each day brings a different reminder of my loss. I know I don't need to be reminded of just what I lost on that July morning but it seems that God takes an opportunity every now and then to remind me of the multitude of things that my husband filled my life with while he was here.

John fancied himself an auto mechanic. He was actually pretty good at it and he loved it. One of the many things that he lost after his illness rendered him disabled. You could see the hurt in his eyes when the car malfunctioned and he not be able to get out there underneath it and search for it's problem. I supposed it presented a unique challenge to him each time. He voiced so many times in the early days of the onset of his illness that he could still fix the car. But even he had to give honor to the illness as it stripped his favorite past time from his grip. He often told me, "honey, I can go out there and tell you what to do and you can do it for me!" I always said, "well if you think I can do it then I'd be willing to try." We never tried it but at least he knew that I would try if he ever really got out there.

Over the years since the illness struck, I often consulted him whenever the car made a strange noise or didn't quite run like it should and he almost always knew what the problem was without even looking at it. But as the illness planted itself into his body, he started to "forget" those things that had lived within his mechanic mind for so long. It was painful to see him lose his first love. Yes. Cars were his first love. A love myself or the kids could never compete with on any level. Very seldom did the car take a back seat to me. (Pardon the pun..lol). I was okay with that for the most part but I did rag on him every now and then about it. I remember asking him once, "what does that car do for you that I don't?" He said with the most serious face, "it doesn't talk back and with enough attention it will do what I want it to do." To which I promptly said, "yeah but I bet it can't make love to you like I do." He looked at me and smiled and said, "touche', you got me on that one honey." We both laughed at that one.

I took his car (the car is still in his name btw) to the shop 2 days ago. It has been neglected because of a few more important things that I've been dealing with (care to guess what..yes..that's the ticket). Of course, if he were here he wouldn't want to hear that. Nothing was more important to Mr. Freeman than the car and it's upkeep. As I turned the keys over to the mechanic and waited for the dollar signs to multiply before my eyes, I felt a sense of sadness deep down in my "john-missing" soul. I almost felt like I was betraying him with another man. I know what he'd be saying. "You're gonna let another man get under your hood?" "Neva" I would say. "That's what I'm talking about gal. You know better." But with his death came another reminder. I no longer have a built in mechanic. I no longer have the luxury of calling him if I get stranded on the side of the road (which didn't happen very often btw). I now have to pay a mechanic just like everyone else in the free world. It's something that I didn't think of very often. How valuable that skill was to our wallets and cars and livelihood. Another skill of his that I took for granted. I did learn from him though. Thanks to him I can properly change a tire, change the spark plugs, change the oil and few other things. He always took the time to show me and he loved that I took an interest in the one thing that made him happy beyond belief. He once told me that I was the only "girlfriend" he'd ever had that remotely showed any interest in his favorite hobby. I liked it because he liked it. And if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Back to cheating on him with another mechanic. It's going to cost a small fortune to fix this vehicle but I think it's worth it. And if he were still here the price of the work that they're asking would certainly kill him. He was thrifty in all things except when he was rebuilding his car. We indulged him on that. It kept him home. It kept him happy and out of trouble was how he justified the hours he spent in the driveway working on that old piece of car that he'd talked someone into practically giving to him. The 1971 Maverick. The last car he owned and worked on before he fell ill. He gave it to his brother not long after he came home from the nursing home in 2003. He knew his mechanic days were over. He tried to live them through his son and myself. But then, Derrick was gone and he was sicker and I was tired. He yearned to get grease on his hands for many months afterwards. But in the end accepted that those days were well behind him. I felt bad for him. Another loss. Another step in the wrong direction.

So as I left his vehicle in the hands of a stranger, I heard his voice in my head. "They're going to charge you way too much for that work and if I were there, we could get it done for less than half of what they want. It would be easy. We could do it. Go to the junkyard and pick up those parts and get in that driveway with the piece of cardboard box on the ground underneath you so you don't have to lay on the cold concrete. C'mon honey, hand me that wrench."

I miss him. John, the auto mechanic.