Van anyone?

Our 12-year-old van is for sale. In fact, I am posting it to Craig’s List this morning. (If anyone is unfamiliar with Craig’s list, I highly suggest you check it out. You can buy or sell anything and find jobs or employees or apartments etc. http://www.craigslist.com/). It is a car. It is serviceable and useful. I do not care about cars. They are things.
Why then do I feel nostalgic? We should have sold the old van a month ago, but life is busy and complicated. Therefore, we waited. Yesterday I took it to be spiffed up at the carwash. As it emerged from the place, all shiny and clean and the inside vacuumed and polished, I realized I was going to miss it.
We bought the van new when my second son was ending his kindergarten year. He just left for college. That’s a long time, and a lot of life. We have gone on vacations, to parties, to hospitals, to school every day for 12 years.
About seven years ago, we had a lift put in it to accommodate Maggie’s wheelchair. It changed our life. We were suddenly able to take Maggie places without the previous muss and fuss of lifting her into a car seat that did not support her and then folding the wheelchair into the back of the van just to reverse that every time we arrived at a destination. Maggie was only about seven when we had the lift installed. She was so little – probably 35 lbs or so then.

Now Maggie is 14 and, though still little – just over 60lbs, she has grown and now is too tall to fit in the old van while sitting in her wheelchair. We knew it was coming and when she got her new chair this summer, we had no choice. We could not delay any longer. We had to replace the old car. The new van is a 2005 model. It has a lowered chassis so Maggie can grow to be 8 ft tall and she will still fit. (Not bloody likely). Now instead of a lift, I just push a button and the ramp lowers. Slick. This will make things easier still. We purchased it with the assistance of the Golden Gate Regional Center, an organization that contracts with the State of California to provide services and equipment to the developmentally disabled. We couldn’t have done it without their help, so I have to thank them.

I’ve been driving the new van for a couple of months now and it too is serviceable and useful, which is all I ever really want from a car. I’m going to have to keep my guard up so I don’t get attached to this one too. It’s hard to say goodbye to an old friend, even one that rattles and shakes. If I could charge for the sentiment, we could all retire.