My father was my life-long hero, so it was an excruciating loss for me when he died shortly before my twenty-fifth birthday.
True to his ever-responsible way, though, he has never-but-never missed "visiting" me on my birthday and bestowing an earthbound gift.
One year, it came in the form of a large, full-sized blaze-colored (his favorite) rose on the miniature RED rose bush in a clay pot in my kitchen. Another time, it took the form of a blind date with the man who went on to become my husband.
The most memorable of his posthumous gifts, however, came in the form of a driving lesson.
It was my father who'd taught me to drive. But at a roadside fruit stand on my thirty-fifth birthday, I chose to defy his number one rule about not ever, ever, EVER leaving a vehicle running when I was not behind its wheel.
I put her into neutral, yanked up the emergency brake, and left to drop THE most succulent-looking berries into paper bags provided by the farmer. After stuffing money into the Honor Box, I turned back toward my car.
....Except she was gone.
Eyes agape, scanning the perimeter, I whirled around with the hysteria of a ballerina whose tutu is engulfed in flames. Seeing nothing, I tried to comprehend how this was even possible. I had been standing just PACES from where I'd parked her; how could I have not heard--or felt--her move?
I don't understand why I looked at the ground right then, but, when I did, I saw skid marks where my car had been just moments before. Like Inspector Clouseau, I followed them in a crouch-walk and saw how they'd backed their way across the narrow road, across the farmer's side yard and through the unbelievably narrow space between his tree and a utility pole. They then looped back around, tattooing the width of the man's entire front lawn.
I watched patches of rubber growing closer together as the topography of the land began to slope toward a drop-off where the forest below was so dense and vast, it looked like a huge, rectangular sink hole.
Inexplicably, defying all laws of Physics, once the skid marks crossed the gravel driveway, mere inches from the drop-off, they made an abrupt U-turn and re-routed themselves back onto the crest of the downward-slanting driveway. There, micro-millimeters from the grill of the farmer's shiny new pick-up truck, sat my car. She was unscathed, facing toward the road and idling in a way that sounded like suppressed, self-satisfied snickering.
That was twenty-five years ago. Since then, birthday or no birthday, never once have I left the driver's seat of an idling vehicle again.
9/7/2026
The Words That Got to Me
My father was my life-long hero, I love that! There, micro-millimeters from the grill of the farmer's shiny new pick-up truck, sat my car. She was unscathed, facing toward the road and idling in a way that sounded like suppressed, self-satisfied snickering. ha! with all that turning, etc., it sounds like it, indeed. She was showing off. Also, clever title!!
You mean it ('scuse me, she) did all that by herself? U-turns and all? I kept thinking you were going to say somebody hopped in and was stealing it. Heavenly days, Rachelle. What a scare! It made me think of two things - either your emergency break needs checking or, you were parked on a slant. Anyway, thank heavens SHE didn't run into somebody or go off the cliff. Good suspense and funny remark about her snickering. With all this she-ing and her-ing, she is bound to have a name? Eloise. perhaps. or some such? Good story! and clever phrasing. Bet your father was looking down at you and shaking his head. Oh, is that usual for a fruit stand to be unmanned and trust people to use an honor box?