Gusto

In high school my parents bought a '96 Plymouth Breeze. Shortly after I returned from my mission it was given to me as the car I would be driving. I have driven it ever since. I decided to call him Gusto, because as a four cylinder he didn't have any otherwise.

Gusto went to DC with us, he made the trip back from Georgia with me. I went to Michigan and then Colorado in him. I had my worst car accident in him. Both of them. Looking back I guess you could say Gusto has been 'mine' longer than anything else I own. When my parents moved to Georgia Gusto is really all I had left of home, the only home I've ever really called home.

Lately, I've been having arguments with my parents about fixing him up, I didn't really see a point, he has so many problems that I figured I would just drive him into the ground and that would be that. Tonight, he died. The starter has been acting up a lot lately and I knew the end was coming. But I don't think I was fully prepared for it. I know I wasn't. It was a quiet death, in his sleep I suppose you could say. He was pretty old for a car, and I didn't take as good a care of him as I ought to have...

I just didn't realize how much I'm going to miss him. How much I am going to miss a home. Ea said she was homesick today. I realize that I am too, I'm homesick for a place that doesn't exist anymore, for a period of my life that I can't go back to. How I wish things never had to change, that life would just go back to the way it was.

I'm going to miss Gusto, I'm going to miss the hole in the floor that I used to pick the lock so many times, I'm going to miss the metal bumper Brother Whiting put on when we drove it to DC. I'm going to miss the freedom he gave me, the memories I have of him. A hundred different things about him, about something that is so integrated into my life that it seems strange to give him up.

Some other memories of Gusto that I love:

Ashley: "Oh, you brought the good car today."

Emmaleigh: "This is going to be up here for a long time isn't it?"

Jason: "What is getting me wet? Where is this water coming from?"

Random New Yorker: "They hit your car!"

I'm going to miss you Gusto. I'm sorry that you have to go.

-C