All good cars don’t go to heaven
Clip art by Bobby Peachey .
It’s been an incredibly busy two weeks due to work and other issues. In particular, I’ve been dealing with one heart-wrenching personal issue… I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that cars, just like humans, do not live eternally.
Our decade-old car recently drove its last mile. He was a good car, chugging along until the very end. He was a reliable car overall, but he did have his little quirks we had come to love: the increasingly loud purr/growl his engine made; his overhead light that would only intermittently help us find things in the dark; his air conditioning that only had two working settings: full-blast and off. He sputtered his last about a week ago, in a puff of white smoke as he pulled into the driveway.
Perhaps because of being raised a Christian, I briefly considered the fact that our car might be in a better place right now. He could be doing a victory lap in that big racetrack in the sky, with a pit crew to attend to his every need.
But are there free oil changes and tuneups forever in the great beyond for our dearly-departed cars? Although there is no way to prove it, and I doubt we’ll ever know for sure whether or not there is a car heaven, I have a sneaking suspicion that this isn’t the case.
I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no need for car heaven. Our car gave his all here on Earth and had a long and full experience, traveling over 120,000 miles of this great land we call America. Some of his parts will be used to keep other cars going. (Our car never signed a donor card, but we know he wouldn’t want it any other way.) And he will give way to a new generation of cars that inspire hope, evolving to become more and more fuel efficient as the years go by.
What matters is that he made a difference in our lives while he was still running. There’s no need for a car heaven. And there’s no need for us to mourn his death. And no time, either—we need to find a new car, and fast!
