In retrospect, I suppose I'd been subconsciously preparing for this moment since May 2, 2009 - the day Pops transferred title to the Jeep to me and Mom and I drove away from 1485. We took two days to make the cross-country trek, rolling in to the Js apartment at one in the morning for a six hour visit. When the Jeep was happily parked in our garage on Fox Chase, Mom flew back to Salt Lake and the Jeep began its new role as Lesan Family Carrier. It easily fit Ellie and Matt, and welcomed Tess in the middle seat. We went about happily for another 15 months. And then the unexpected happened: Tessa grew tall enough that her legs were hanging off the end of her infant car seat uncomfortably. Matt weighed in at 28 pounds at his three year checkup, too small for even a high back booster. I tried putting him in Ellie's high back booster, hoping that he would look safe despite his weight. He didn't. Reluctantly, I followed Rob in conducting some serious minivan research.
Rob has always been a fan of the minivan. A few years ago, pre-Jeep, he finally said, "I'm not going to try to convince you anymore. I'm pretty sure at some point this problem will take care of itself." After much research, internet scoping, test-driving, number crunching, and lengthy Excel spreadsheets, we concluded that the new Honda Odyssey was our car. I still dawdled on the decision. One Saturday afternoon, I told Rob, "Let's just bring up the other toddler car seat from the basement and see if we can fit everything in the Jeep." Rob humored me, and managed to cram all three seats in the Jeep. Then we put the kids in. That took more cramming. The kids admitted that they were uncomfortable. There was no space to fit a hand down to buckle or unbuckle Ellie, and Matt and Tessa's seats were a little crooked from where they overlapped. I imagined the three of them hitting and kicking each other during long (or short) drives, and yelling, "Mom, s(he)'s touching me!" I took a deep breath, looked at Rob, and admitted at last, "Okay, you're right. Let's go." He looked wistfully at the Jeep in the driveway and said, "I am going to miss this car."
Off we went to the Honda dealership to name our price. I hopped into charming and persistent lawyer mode, and negotiated the trade-in on the Jeep and the price of the car to exactly the numbers we'd crunched. Rob was impressed. We intended to make the deal, supply a down payment, and come back for the car once we'd transferred money into our checking account. But the car salesman had other plans: "why don't get the car seats transferred." I gasped. We were saying goodbye to the Jeep now? Here? Immediately?
Rob comforted me. "Think of it like a band-aid," he said. "It's better to have it happen suddenly than to have to go through a drawn out goodbye." I took a deep breath and pulled out my camera.
Rob captured me on a road trip down memory lane.
We let Matt take the steering wheel for a bit while Ellie sat in the back one last time.
Ellie and I posed for last pictures.
And Matt and I stared out the window intensely, just soaking in our last glimpses. At last the men came to drive the Jeep away, and - I'm not embarrassed to admit - I choked back a few tears. Matt was running around in the little playroom at the time. He came back soon after the Jeep was gone and said, "I want to look at our Jeep again." When I gently explained that it was gone, he threw himself down on the floor sobbing, saying, "I want our Jeep! I miss our Jeep!"
To ease our obvious and (slightly irrational?) distress, the car salesmen led Ellie and Matt over to the gong where people who buy new cars announce their purchase. He let them gong a few times and off we went, quite literally into the sunset, driving our spacious van.
For several days, I found myself catching my breath when I saw a similar Jeep on the road. I caught myself staring at a Jeep in a parking lot one night and realized with a start that I thought I was staring at my own car. Rob turned to me one day and acknowledged, "This is going to be just like the Trooper, isn't it..." Yes, yes it is.
Postscript: Three weeks later, I am completely in love with my Honda Odyssey EX-L, with a smoky topaz exterior and a truffle leather interior. On day three of owning it, Rob looked at my nail polish and asked, "Did you paint your nails the same color as your car?" Um, I'm going to plead the fifth on that one.
