Car Show Adventures

 

    Graffiti Week in Roseburg. Five days of car shows for gear heads, car enthusiasts young and old, or anyone who simply likes the sound of a muscle car driving by. My dad and I have always shared a love of classic cars. He did a frame off restoration of a 1954 Chevrolet, and he helped me restore my 1972 Nova. He taught me how to change a tire before I left home. “You need to know this if you’re alone and stuck.” He made sure I knew how to change the oil, check fluid levels, add antifreeze, replace wiper blades. I still change my own wiper blades. To hell with AutoZone. I still check fluid levels, but changing oil is best left to the professionals on newer cars. And I ain’t as young as I once was. Crawling under a car is a project now I’d rather not take on.

    I committed to take my dad to a couple of the Graffiti Week events. His failing eyesight made him give up his driver’s license two years ago so I am now his chauffeur and seeing eye daughter. We’d planned on the Thursday evening events on Diamond Lake Boulevard and the Saturday car show at the Melrose Winery. I hadn’t mentioned the Wednesday show at the VA. Driving back and forth to Glide twice a day gets old real quick.

    I woke up Wednesday morning out of sorts, for a reason I couldn’t explain. It was a gloriously cool morning in the Burg, so I started by walking my dogs. Exercise usually puts my mind right. It didn’t. So I decided to do a deep clean on the interior of my car, which I’ll be trading in soon. I sat in my car remembering how important it was for my husband, John, that I had a safe and reliable car. He knew his days were numbered and he was driven to do all he could to make things easier for me after he was gone. Trading in my 15-year-old pickup on a new and reliable car was on his list. I felt a bit melancholy about trading in the car he wanted me to have, but the time is right. And after all, he wanted me to be safe and have a reliable car, and the new one would be that, too.

    I debated going to the car show being held at the VA campus. I wasn’t invested in the idea, but something was drawing me out. Get out of the house, I thought. It’ll do you good. With the temperature still comfortable, I put on my walking shoes and thought, at least it’s exercise.

    The veteran directing cars to the parking area asked if I was parking. I wanted to be a smart ass and say, Well, I’m certainly not showing a Kia. But I smiled and said yes. I parked my soon-to-be-traded Kia in the grassy lot and started my slow walk around the show. My joints were barking at me hard and I’d have rather been home on the sofa under a heating pad. One of the first cars I noticed was a 50-something Buick. It was a car John would have loved. Boxy, clunky and square. Not my style, but he loved them.

    I continued meandering around the show. I spotted a group of veterans in wheelchairs being pushed by employees and volunteers. The sight stopped me in my tracks. I looked at them and didn’t see only old men. I didn’t see their gray hair and failing bodies. I saw who they used to be. Young servicemen, maybe serving in Korea, or Vietnam. Maybe some of them spent their tour doing KP duty stateside. Maybe one of them flew fighter planes in Vietnam. Maybe one of them was Special Forces, as my husband was, and couldn’t or wouldn’t talk about his service. But they all answered the call. Then I thought how much it sucked that my husband didn’t live long enough to be an old man being pushed around in a wheelchair at a VA car show. But he would have hated that anyway.

    Two minutes later I looked over to an empty field adjoining the site of the car show and spotted eleven deer. That’s when I lost it.

    Backstory…shortly after my husband died, a mutual friend and amateur medium, Sarah, called me and wanted to share that she had “heard” from John. She said John was presenting himself to her as a stag, as my protector, in her visions of him. She said, “For someone who was sure there was nothing after death but darkness, he is gobsmacked that there is something else.” She assured me he was watching over me, and to watch for signs of a stag. She also said, “He’s on the house issue. Trust he’s working on it.”  I’d been living with my dad and was extremely driven to find a house of my own and get out of his. I love my dad, but living with him was worse than losing my husband. I looked at a house I felt was “the one” and when I walked to the backyard, a deer lay in the yard looking at me. Two days later I went back to take another look and again, a deer watched me. The owner of the house, I learned, had died about the same time John had. I pictured them having a conversation.

    “Hey, my wife needs a house. Know of anything?”
    “Well, I have a house in Roseburg, but who wants to live there?”
    “My wife’s dad is there, so she does. What you got?”

    After I moved in, I was watching the Indy 500, which had been a big deal for my husband as he was from Indianapolis and had a high school friend who worked on a racing team. A deer arrived outside my living room window just as the race started and lay there for the entire race. Once the race ended, she stood up and left. So yeah, a deer is our sign.

    Back to the car show. When I spotted the herd, it was like John was hitting me with a mallet. One deer? Nope! How about 11? I walked behind a tree where I could sob without making a spectacle of myself. I watched the herd for at least 15 minutes. At one point, three of them walked within 40 feet of me. I felt all at once all the love my husband had ever felt, ever said, and never said. The feeling was so strong it almost brought me to my knees but I was afraid I wouldn’t have been able to get up again. Damn joints.  I kept saying out loud, “Thank you John. Thank you John.” I hadn’t felt him for several months, but I knew without a doubt he was checking on me. Once I regained my composure, I texted Sarah, the one person I knew would understand. I did NOT tell her I’d been saying Thank You, John. Her reply? Thank you, John.

    I wiped my eyes and continued my walk around the car show. The angst that had been present all morning was gone. I drove home, feeling lighter than I had in weeks. Yet the double-edged sword was still there. John was so very present yet he was gone. Comfort and agony.  Presence and absence.