Sweet Shoppe Designs

For the Inspiration Challenge... a car story.

Grab a tissue... this is a tear-jerker!

Journaling:
The car has been one place where the tears seem to come very easily. I'm not sure why exactly. Maybe it's something about being behind the wheel that stirs up deep feelings and memories of driving to and from the hospital for 18 days straight. I would say that the times when I have to blink back the tears have become less frequent over the last three years. When those moments sneak up on me, though, they steal my breath just like it was in those first months without you. The pain does not go away, it simply changes.

On this particular morning, I was rushing to work. I needed to make a call on my cell phone before the school day would begin, so I fumbled with the phone and tried to recall the number of a friend I had not spoken to in several months. She wasn't in my phone book, so I had to rely on my memory. I hesitated while dialing the number, unsure if this was the correct one. A woman answered, but it wasn't the woman I was trying to reach. She politely told me I had dialed the wrong number, and I apologized. Taking the phone away from my ear and keeping one eye on the road, I glanced down to see what I had dialed. What I saw knocked the wind right out of me. There it was, plain as day. It was your name on the screen, all lit up and shining right at me. I had reached down deep to remember a number, and what I dialed was you. Like a knee-jerk response, despite the fact that years have gone by.

It is so hard to describe what went through my mind at that moment. The feeling was akin to the time when I was alone in the grocery store and someone whistled your special whistle- the one that would bring us all running when we were kids. I turned that day and for a split second expected to see you walking toward me in your faded jeans, hands in your pockets, smiling that gap-toothed grin at me. I was so angry with my response, and I lost it right there in the store.

I found myself staring at the phone, and I wondered why this would happen today, just a few days before your birthday, and a few weeks before the anniversary, and two months before Fathers' Day. What a strange feeling, almost as though this could be some kind of message for me. Something pulled you right to the surface of my everyday life again. It made me cry, but it also made me smile. In some strange way I hoped that this could be your way of coming through me, giving me a little strength to face this season of loss as it has come to be known for those of us who miss you every single day.

See Spot Run by Robin Carlton
Cardboard overlay by Linda GB