Repost from Russisms.com original date July 9 2009:
2202825 is the mileage on Dad's blue truck this moment I sit in it on the warmest day so far this summer. It is the first and only time I have been able to get near it since he died. Wayne has come to pick up the truck and take it down to Vernal. Now this is a very good decicion I think my mom has made, to give the truck to Wayne. Wayne, is basically, my brother. In younger years he had problems with his parents, and he spent a lot of time at my house. Wayne, among very few, stuck with me through the hardest parts of my highschool years-especially when I got pregnant. He was there when babies where born, and he was there for weddings, and he was there for various family bar-b-ques and holidays. His kids called my dad "Papa Russ". And that brings us back to the truck. My dad gave Wayne opportunities to weld, and to work at Amos Rents. My dad loved Wayne. Wayne went on to school to learn to weld professionally. Chris, Amy and I obviously have stuff coming to us from "my dad." My mom slightly agonized over what to do with the truck. Personally, it killed me, even still this day, as I drive into the circle, and see it there. A memory maybe, a glimmer of a feeling, seeing that truck there, parked where it always had been- where it should be- I still think that dad is home. AND I think, no, he is not here. I have (I guess possibly morbid) thoughts regarding the fact that truck took him to the place he died. It drove him. He drove it. However it happened, someone, not my dad had to get into that truck, and bring it home that day. That day. So fast forward, to a cold night. It was the first time I had seen Wayne since the funeral. And we cried, in the front yard, steps away from that damn truck I could barely stand to look at because it was so him- still held so much of him. Wayne wanted the truck. Loved that truck as I truthfully do too....and as Wayne and I talked about it, I knew he needed that piece of my dad, possibly that biggest last piece of my dad that was unclaimed. He wanted it. So here it is today. He will take it, and I sit. To say goodbye. And I think about the day that truck was brought home about '93. I used to sit and listen to my Phantom of the Opera cassette tape in there untill my mom yelled at me to get out- The sound system was the greatest thing i'd heard yet! How many Sunday drives had we had in it? Sittin in the back, when sittin in the back wouldn't get you hauld in for breakin some seatbelt law. This truck moved us to this new house. It also hauled my inherited piece of my dad, the old Desert Dino race jeep. The Bountiful High parking sticker is still affixed to the passenger side window of the truck bed cover. I had to take a picture of the land of the free because of the brave sticker on the back window. And also of the tread lightly and fight back stickers advertising the fight to keep our public lands open to the public. I had driven this to school, and to parties. I did my fair share of unauthorized by father "wheeling" and also kissed and fought with also unauthorized by father boyfriends in this truck. Now I want to lay here on the seat in the sun and cry- but I fear my mom is watching and might think ive lost it so, instead, I just touch everypart of this truck that carried my dad around for so many years. The seat, blue and grey, the soft lined patterns of the fabric- the dirt that was unevitably my dads. Of course my mom had vaccummed the insides out but the seat still carried the pattern....The worn out buttons, the writing that used to be white on grey buttons. The rear view mirror-which wasnt the original. The original had met some fate-possibly by being ripped from the window in a fit of "Russ", but I wont say for sure. I touched the broken seat belts, and the dash guard and the stearing wheel adjustment nob where for many months there was a pair of nail clippers that hung there. I looked at the dash where there once was a bag of uneaten shelled sunflower seeds, and money-God there used to be money everywhere in there! In the ash tray....in the side door panells-along with lots of other junk. Sometimes there was a small handgun stashed somewhere that Dad would have to go retrieve before I could take the truck. I thought about this, sitting in the sun. Sitting in this truck that had been cleaned out of all things "my dad". And I go back to how many Christmas's had this truck taken us to? How many pictures was this vehicle the backdrop in? Enough I guess. Enough for me to be able to let go, and be happy that Wayne wanted it so bad, AND I wouldnt have to look at it sitting in front of this house where my dad was supposed to be coming home to today, but would never. I try not to cry too much remembering how dad used to "let me shift" the gear shifter when we were driving when I was little, or how one day we were driving to Coalville and Dad was swerving all over the road while trying to get into a bag of Lays potato chips-and we got in a fight-AND he pulled off the road in a huff saying "you drive" while getting out to stomp to the back and lay down for the rest of the drive....the day the gear shifter came completely out of the floor in my hand on a down hill-and mom and I fixed it by ourselves because we knew Dad was too stressed out to tell him what had happened...I sit here, and think about all this, wanting to touch one of the last places he touched, the steering wheel, the door handle. And I do. I make myself. Its been a year. The worn out steering wheel. O god, the day he praised me while I towed the jeep on a trailer up hill through traffic. You know, I still pass that site while on the freeway and smile.....but yes, the steering wheel. The door handle. I try not to think about what had he done that day, those last moments, but I wander there. Desperate to hold onto those last few happy moments when he was alive. And i hope, GOD, please let them have been happy. Let him please not known he was going to die. And i cry. and cry. He had come to rescue me that night I got hit head on by someone driving the wrong way on the freeway. You know, i called him that night first, before the police. I climbed out of that Datsun, with Tyler as a baby, and walked almost a mile in the snow to a 7-11 to call my dad. Dad. Not the police, although the 7-11 guy had called the police for me. He picked me up in this truck, and we towed the car, in this truck. Cry. Pieces of your dad. Good memories, and bad. But mostly good. Cry. And feel that wheel, where his hands had been that afternoon. That door handle he had to shut to go inside to die. That door handle, the worn out paint, the scratches from the keys on the keyhole. And I cry. It is okay. He is happy now. He is with me now, when I need him. He is here, pain gone. Stress gone. And it is okay. It's okay. The truck goes with Wayne today. I'm okay with that. Dad wanted that. I say goodbye. I rest my head against the warm metal, the first and last time I could bear to touch that almost living and breathing beast. I shut the door. I linger over the handle. I take a picture of the inside. I walk away realizing I had memorized the odometer reading. 2202825. i know this number has no significance to anyone but me. But this is the mileage of the vehicle that brought my dad through this life. This is the marker of the moment, the moment, I had to say goodbye. There are a few, like the date, July 16. July 22. Gas at above four dollars, the heat of almost 100 degrees. About 1 o'clock. These things all markers in this sad story for me. When I pass by one of these markers, I tend to remember. I tend to need to say outloud, how sad that it is, that still, my dad is gone. All that is left are these memories, these material things that he used. That he touched. The last things that he touched.