Tonight I said goodbye to a dear old companion. To the girl that first drew me to Ballard. I had stumbled upon her. Meant to see another, at another place. But when I saw her, I just knew. She was the first real thing of substance that I had purchased out of college. While the ink was still wet on my diploma. First real thing of substance I had purchased period. Gretchen.
In 2000, Gretchen was there when I first moved to a suburb of Seattle called Ballard. And obligingly carried all my stuff from Ballard to Fremont, when I moved again in 2001. The one that tagged along with The Dude and I in 2002 on a road trip to the infamous northern California redwoods, as fresh newlyweds. And ambled along in 2003 on the drive up to Banff, Alberta when we truly, deeply, head over heels fell in love with Canada.
In 2004, she was there to escort me to my new job. And she waited patiently for my return from our first trip to Europe in 2005. Constant companion in 2006, she witnessed us touring house after house until finally, inevitably she was replaced by the new, larger, more significant purchase in our lives. And suddenly she wasn't the young beauty she had once been.
Crushed, her heart began to fail and, shortly thereafter, her transmission. Though I knew her case was terminal, I wasn't ready to say goodbye. We'd been through so much. Maybe one day, months down the road, I would rationalize, I could patch her up like I had done so many times before. But my heart (and my wallet) knew our time together was drawing to an end. Still, I didn't have the heart to let her go. Not yet.
Instead, I parked her outside our new house, which I had just given a nickname, Gracie Allen, like I had done so many years before with her. And for 10 months she sat outside in the rain and the snow, in the ice and the fog, through the spring showers and early summer sun, waiting patiently while her battery also died and a tire went flat. Then yesterday I decided it was time.
Tonight I said goodbye to a dear old companion. A nice older gentleman with a fist full of cash stopped by and drove off with her. He didn't want to hear about all her quirks. He just wanted to fix her up and re-sell her. And it kind of made me so sad about something so silly. Sad that the next person to drive her wouldn't love her like me. Wouldn't know how to put up with her antics or care for that matter.
And as he drove away, taking a tiny piece of so many different memories and so much joy, I realized that I had forgotten in the haste to take one last picture. Or maybe it isn't exactly that I forgot, but instead could discern that it wasn't really Gretchen I was letting go. It was the quiet moments with friends, and The Dude, and my family and the journey of the last 8 years; with all it's accomplishments, failures and life lessons.
But there is an image that burns in my memory. And Gretchen is no where to be found it in. It goes back to that road trip to the redwoods in 2002. Sitting in the passenger seat while The Dude drove Gretchen down a long and winding, bumpy gravel road dodging redwoods at every turn, until we finally emerged from the dark cover of forest and were engulfed in blinding sunlight and a breathtaking view of the Pacific.
There was only one way back home, which was down the road we came, back through the redwoods, over the bumpy gravel road. Gretchen wasn't exactly built for off-roading and I have a feeling that was the beginning of the end for her. But if there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that everything is about the journey. And that's a good enough excuse as any, I say, to drive your shiny new car down the road less traveled by. Goodbye Gretchen. Rest in peace.
