Dad's Blue Pick-Up

My heels crunched through the gravel as I slowly walked toward the blue 1975 Ford F-100 that dominated most of my childhood memories. My father loved this truck. I remember him spending hours in our poorly temperature controlled garage tinkering with it, heavily layered in winter and sweating through his Levi’s and white t-shirts during the hot summers. It’s where I spent most of my time as a kid, fetching him wrenches, screwdrivers, sockets, and oiled soaked rags as he taught me the ins and outs of car maintenance. He always told me that I would never need a man to help me with my car, I would be the one helping with theirs. I could still hear the echo of his laugh when he would see me seated in the driver’s seat, one of his baseball caps too big and backwards on my head and grease intentionally smeared on my cheeks. “My little Bryn.” He was always say.

As I got closer to the old truck I mentally took inventory of all the scratches and dents. Each one had a story. The cave-in on the hood where I would step to climb onto the roof. The scratch on driver’s side door where my older brother Easton drove a little too close to the side of the garage. How the blue on the right side of the hood was a little more faded from the rest because my older sister Scarlet forgot to put the cover on all the way when we went on a summer long vacation six years ago. The dent on the front bumper from when my younger brother Asher was learning how to drive and crashed into the garage door because he put accidently put the gear in drive. We would have to sit through hour long rants after every little ding, yet dad never fixed any of them. Mom always said he was proud of them. That they showed everyone what he had at home.

I found myself staring at the driver’s side window, not being able to move, the papers clutched in my hand feeling heavier the longer I held onto them. I forgot the tape. How am supposed to put the sign up without tape? I wiped sweat off my forehead with the back of my free hand, cursing the tradition to wear black to a funeral. Alabama summers were unforgiving, no matter the circumstances, and though my dress was short sleeved and small, it absorbed the heat from the beating sun.

I looked back where I just came from, the cars clustered around the barn, people milling around holding flowers and casseroles. That’s what you did when someone died, buried the living with food they could never finish. My mother stood beside that pastor, faking a smile to everyone offering their condolences. It was the same routine over and over. Apology for the loss. A thank you. An offer forgotten before the coffin is lowered. A food dish set aside.
Easton had parked the truck at the end of the drive this morning as a way of welcoming the guests and letting them know they were at the right place. Mom wanted to keep it in the garage, but he had walked in on her sitting in the cab crying too many times. He thought that if we got it out, then she wouldn’t have to see it every time she needed something from the garage. It was also the reason why I was down here with the ‘For Sale’ sign balled in my hand. I figured it would be best to do it while she was preoccupied, get it done so the reminder wasn’t constantly there.

I just didn’t know how hard it would be. That it would feel like I was betraying my dad by taping the white piece of paper to the window. That the sound of the door slamming shut would feel like a final goodbye. That the walk back would feel like I carrying an extra fifty pounds on my shoulders. That as soon as I saw Scarlet I would immediately burst into tears and practically fall into her.

No, no one warned me how hard this would be.