Life is everchanging as we adapt to an everchanging World… along with everything that goes into that. It’s always moving… shifting… morphing into something familiar, but which doesn’t feel the same. Life is continually updating to The Present…. and we’re forced to exist in The Now. In my Widowhood, and I think we all go through something like this, there have been Moments when I’m walking up the driveway, or driving down to town, or strolling through the woods, or snowshoeing with Amanda, or simply sitting in the Kateri/Xander Chair where I find myself taking a look around and going, “Huh… so this is what My Life looks like right now… Who’d a thunk? Wouldn’t have guessed that This or That was gonna be a part of it..!”. Today, while driving my truck home after getting windshield wipers for the cute little Jeep Renegade… the one whose front wheel had fallen off… I had one of those Moments.
On this morning’s ToDo List was the final task pertaining to my mini-Midlife crisis after the previously mentioned wheel fell off my vehicle… and I bought a new(ish) truck. This morning, a friend of mine helped me replace the fender on the cute little Jeep, which had gotten a bit crumpled when my wheel tried to smash through it! And now, I am at a point in My Timeline which feels slightly different than the one I was at just about a month and a half ago.
I’ve thought a lot about Life over the last 6 weeks… a lot about My Life. There have been some significant emotional, psychological, and financial challenges that I needed to face, to figure out, to get past and overcome so that I could move… forward. After my wheel falling off and subsequently me freaking out and buying a new(ish) truck literally the next day… then getting snow tires/bed cover/ice scraper/jump pack/etc…. after making the decision to get rid of Kateri’s Tacoma along with deciding who would remove it… and then having it removed…!,.. after going through the steps I had planned out once the dust settled from the initial runaway wheel, I’m filing this experience away in the “Memories” and/or “Remember When?!” folders because my cute little Jeep’s driver’s side front fender is fixed!… and I even got to help…!.. a little.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
My Life is filled with 49 years of wonderful experiences and memories along with more than a handful of uncomfortable ones… and few that I could’ve lived without. That’s just how Life goes. Nope, this isn’t how I expected it to go, but my story is still being written and every day that I’m awake I have an opportunity to adapt to the world outside my windows as I try to persuade The Future to be kind and go in the direction I would like it to. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t, but Perseverance will get me to tomorrow… where there’s another opportunity to try it again.
For years, I’ve had Dreams of Grandeur of becoming an auto mechanic. This experience only reinforced that dream!… hmmm.
The wobble in my steering wheel was rather concerning when I first felt it as I crossed over into Vermont. By the time I got to the next exit the wobble had added a wibble, so I figured I should probably play it safe and get off the interstate. At this point, although I found it concerning, I didn’t think that much about it. All I thought was there was an appointment at Mike’s in my near future… (and there was!). When I got off the interstate and started heading north, I was still at that stage where you turn down the radio and listen to all the noises your vehicle is making while trying to decipher what is an old sound… and what is a new one…!
I got to the gas station 11 miles up the road and realized that the wibble wobble had no intentions of going away. I pulled into a parking spot, gave this bar a little push, gave that bar a little pull, looked at some stuff and some things… everything seemed solid…! Considering I’m a cook and not a mechanic and didn’t really know what I was doing… I was definitely trying to look the part! I even popped the hood in hopes of seeing something obvious! Unfortunately, I didn’t learn anything from popping the hood. I was just reminded of the fact that chipmunks will squirrel away acorns in all sorts of places… like the hollow part of your hood. So, I kept on truckin’… in my cute little Jeep.
The church on top of the hill is the last point on the drive home with somewhat reliable cell service, and with the shimmy and shakes I was experiencing I decided to shoot Amanda a text letting her know something was up with my car… just in case something happened. My next text to her was sent after I pulled out of the general store 5 and a half miles up the road… and thankfully the text went through! Of course, she didn’t see it right away because she was engrossed in putting together a puzzle, but when she did see it, it said… “My wheel just fell off”… and that event set in motion an experience (that I’m currently going through) which is filled with everything from “What the fuck was that?!” to “That was pretty frickin’ cool…!” while also hitting all aspects of my life. It is providing me with the opportunity to remember Kateri, to take a couple more steps into my widowhood and find a bit more out about myself, to fulfill a midlife-crisis dream and buy a new(ish) truck… and end this experience with saying goodbye to the 2001 Tacoma that has been rusting away in my driveway for the last 3 years. I have finally become comfortable with letting go of the daily reminder of one of Kateri’s Hopes n Dreams… her own Toyota truck.
First Event in the Chain… The Wheel Fell Off.
Yup… my driver’s side front wheel fell right the fuck off. I pulled out onto the road… heard a clunk-clunk… was gonna stop to reverse back into the general store’s parking lot… but it was too late! After that second clunk the front-left side of my vehicle dropped a foot as I heard the sound of metal scraping on asphalt. I turned my head to the left and could see that I was sitting much closer to the road… and there were multiple feet of empty space between the vehicle I was sitting in and the wheel I was looking at across the road! That’s not supposed to be over there!! This is an example of one of those “What the fuck was that?!” situations.
After the initial shock wore off, my brain went to “What are the priorities in this situation?… when your vehicle is sitting at a slight angle in the middle of the road (in my lane, at least)… with only three wheels!”. So I put the hazards on, got out of the vehicle and retrieved the wheel, rolled it to the side and texted Amanda. I just wanted to let her know what was going on, that I was fine, I was gonna need to tow the car… and if she had AAA…!
Once she was on her way, I took a breath, walked back to the car… and the problem solving began! I thought about the possibility of somehow rolling it back into the parking lot…?… not likely. The “thought” that actually created the environment for me to have my first “That was pretty frickin’ cool..!” experience was, “Well, the rotor doesn’t seem to be mangled or anything, maybe if I just start jacking the car up I’ll just be able to put the wheel back on…? Now… where are the lug nuts..?..?…! LUG NUTS!!…”… I found 1… solo… lug nut. Well, maybe it’ll be enough to get my cute little Jeep out of the road..? So, I placed the car-jack where I thought looked “safe”… and started to slowly lift the driver’s side naked wheel well up off the cold asphalt.
As I was turning the “Awkward Jack Turning Thing-a-ma-Jig Tool” a vehicle pulled up beside me and a younger guy asked if I need any help. Why YES!… Yes I do need some help!… Would LOVE some help! It also felt good knowing that I could use help… and that I took the step to actually accept it from this stranger. I’m glad I did because when he returned from pulling up ahead of me, he was carrying an impact drill and socket set! This was the start of one of those perfect backwoods “Vermonty” experiences which reminds me of why I live here and love my little “neighborhood”. I mean, once getting a read on the kid, after introductions and giving the low down on the situation, I was quite confident we were gonna at least get this thing out of the road…! And God dammit… we did.
Once I reached an acceptable height to reattach the wheel, Parker (the kid) tried screwing in the lone lug nut… to no avail. When we pulled it out, we realized it was stripped to shit and was basically useless. So now what? I’ve got a wheel… but no lug nuts! Thankfully for good ol’ ingenuity, we simply took (well, not so simply) a few lug nuts from a couple of other wheels to attach the front wheel well enough to roll down the road!… at slow to moderate speeds…! Unfortunately, there were a plethora of stubborn lug nuts, so we ended up taking 2 from driver’s-side-rear and 1 from the passenger’-side-rear…but it worked!
Once I realized we were gonna be able to get the wheel on and that I was most likely gonna be able to get home… a calmness kinda fell over me. It was relieving knowing that this part of the challenge had been figured out. What started out as a somewhat fucked up, annoying, frustrating, and potentially dangerous situation ended with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. It was a wonderful experience!… besides the whole wheel falling off thing.
When Amanda and I got home and were talking about the situation, my priority was figuring out how to get to work… on Thursday… it was Sunday, but I had the next three days off because of my weekend and New Year’s Day. My plan was to order lug nuts off of Amazon (well, Amanda did since I don’t have Prime and wanted them shipped fast!), get them on Tuesday, put them on the Jeep so that I didn’t have any empty spots, drive it to work on Thursday and hit my friend’s shop on the way home. All of which I did… and my buddy was amazing.
Second Event in the Chain… my Mid-Life Crisis.
I’ll be honest, when my wheel started doing the wibble wobble thing my mind went straight to, “Fuck this… I’m buying a new truck…!”. I won’t get too much into it, but I feel like I’ve been sorta going through a Mid-Life Crisis with a touch of Widowhood thrown in there for good measure. For the past few years as the Jeep has been chugging along and accumulating miles, I’ve been looking at trucks. Lots of trucks. All sorts of trucks! When Kateri died and I went from a 2-income household to just my income (I’m a cook)… I basically thought I would be driving the cute little Jeep a bit longer into the future and didn’t think I would actually be able to buy a newer vehicle. It’s just kinda fun to wish for things… and to dream of owning an old truck.
For the last year, I narrowed it down to either a 1980-’88 Toyota Truck… or a newer Tacoma that would be more comfortable and reliable. The conundrum was that they are basically kinda sorta the same price (ish) so it’s really a matter of if I should be rational and responsible… or spend the money on “The Cool Factor”. I’m 49… I went the rational/responsible route. Yup, I bit the bullet and bought a new(er) Tacoma… which is red… and I love it.
It was fun buying a new vehicle even though it was nerve wracking at the same time… and always takes longer than expected, but Nick was wonderful and after some wheeling n dealing, I felt comfortable with what we had landed on. As we sat there waiting for paperwork to be finalized and the truck to come back from being filled with gas and the interior gone over one more time, I realized this was the first time in 24 years that I was buying a vehicle solely because it was the vehicle that I wanted. Kateri and I had multiple vehicles over the years but as one would come to the end of its life after hundreds of thousands of miles, we would talk about what would fit our needs, what did we want to buy, what worked best for us. This time was different. Yes, having a car payment again is rather disconcerting, but the fact that I’m paying for my truck… one that I’m excited about… one that I picked out… for me... actually feels… good. Of course, I didn’t drive it for the first week since it came with summer tires and I didn’t feel like sliding off Wild Hill and wrecking the thing before I even made the first payment!… but we’re good to go now… green license plates n all!
Third (and final) Event in the Chain… Kateri’s 2001 Toyota Tacoma.
Kateri and I bought a 2001 Tacoma in 2010. Her dream car was a Yota with a wooden bed. After she died, I had Hopes n Dreams of removing the bed (it’s super rusty) and turning it into a wooden flatbed. Unfortunately, Time, Mother Nature, and Money were working against me and once the gas tank rusted through (around the fuel pump rusted which caused the pump to fall to the bottom of the tank leaving a hole on the top!), it basically sat in its spot for the next 3-4 years as the Vermont weather slowly chipped away at the truck’s integrity. Heck, I had tow straps holding the gas tank on in the first place!
Because of the situation… and me not wanting my driveway to look like a used car lot or salvage yard… I came to the conclusion to simply let the ol’ Gold Toyota go. More importantly, I had reached that moment in Time where I was comfortable letting it go… and ready for it. It’s still amazing to me the amount of weight I put on certain things because of their attachment to Kateri and our life together, and it feels somewhat relieving when I reach these types of decisions… and accept them.
My Little Red Schoolhouse and that beat up 2001 Toyota Truck are two material things that probably hold the most attachments to Kateri for me in my Widowhood (plus her wedding ring and a bracelet)… of course, the house I have no plans to get rid of!… even though it’s rotting away, as well..! We loved it… LOVED IT!… when we got that truck. We drove all over Vermont in it. I have so many fond memories of Kateri and I camping in it, filling the back with items for our wedding, driving over the App Gap after work through snowstorms, hauling debris to the dump from the bathroom we demolished, or simply going for a drive to places where the roads get narrower and narrower as the forest gets thicker and thicker. At times, we might’ve even gotten lost… but we didn’t care… because it was all part of the adventure!
We all use and view our vehicles differently. Living rurally, cars/trucks/transportation is a huge thing… you spend a lot of time in your car simply going to the grocery store. Kateri and I were also filled with that wanderlust for a good chunk of our life together… basically, until we bought our Little Red Schoolhouse. One of Kateri’s favorite things to do was to sit in the passenger seat while The Band blared from the speakers and smoke from a joint was being whisked out the cracked window… and watch The World go by. Road trips were a common thing. We would spend a lot of days off just driving around and seeing the sights. Before we bought our house, looking at real estate was a wonderful excuse to putz around Vermont and talk about our future… talk about our Hopes n Dreams… as the ground beneath us was changing constantly as the miles piled up.
From the moment the ’01 Tacoma became inoperable, it has sat there reminding me that I don’t have the means to fix… that it has been neglected… that I have neglected it. Anytime I want to move something out of the garage, I only have one option because there’s a broken-down truck in front of one of the garage doors… and it annoys the fuck out of me. For the past three years when it comes time to move wood from the road to the garage, I get frustrated by the number of trips I need to take with the little garden trailer being pulled behind the lawn tractor… as I drive it right past the truck! Don’t even get me started on all the times I go to Home Depot and wished I had an operational truck!… instead of figuring out how many 2×4’s I can slide between the front seats and still shut the back door instead of strapping them to the roof…!
What it comes down to and where I’m at is that every day when I come home from work, the store, a neighbor’s house, etc… I see that truck sitting there… withering away… and it’s Time for me to let it go. It doesn’t mean I’m “letting go of” or “moving on from” or “getting past” the loss of Kateri… because we Live with Loss for as long as we are alive… it just changes over Time. For me, I recently went through a series of events that in the end transpired into some cool experiences, a new truck!… and an open parking space, and the removal of a rusty ol’ eyesore… that just happened to be filled with priceless memories of Life and Love.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
In 2019, a guy named Doug left this note on my front door. I wasn’t anywhere near thinking about getting rid of the Tacoma and shared that with him over a very pleasant and enjoyable phone call. I felt that if I was ever to get rid of it… I’d contact him first… so I kept the note… and called 5 years later… and his wife informed me he passed away… in 2019. I’m glad I kept the note. I feel fortunate that I was able to talk to him. And albeit somewhat brief, I’m thankful for the wonderfully heartfelt and honest conversation I was able to have with his widowed wife. Pretty frickin’ cool.
I donated the truck to Habitat for Humanity. At first (after trying Doug), I just wanted it gone and maybe I could get a couple of bucks out of it, but that didn’t feel right to me… Kateri wouldn’t have cared for it. Habitat helped her mom out so I thought Kateri would appreciate the attachment and that her truck was gonna go towards helping someone in need.
Trains of Thought on the Jeep wheel falling off.
The logical train of thought shared with me from people who know a lot more about this kinda stuff is that there was corrosion between the wheel and plate and the lug nuts simply loosened up over time. And yes, I’m still beating myself up for not checking lug nuts when the wibble wobble was going on!
Because I’ve lost a bit of faith in humanity these days, I’m still saying that someone stole four of my lug nuts when I was in town because they needed them for their own car. I hope it worked out for them.
Although I love my new truck, I’m not yet comfortable having it and it’s not lost on me that the main reasons I was in a position to buy it was because my wife died and I straight up stopped spending money, my mom died and there was a small chunk from when my father sold their house, and there was a global pandemic where I worked… and worked… and worked.
Kateri go rid of a bunch of cassette tapes when we moved back to Vermont because we didn’t have a vehicle with a tape deck. When we bought the ’01 Tacoma later that year… it came with a tape deck…!
I kept the tailgate from Kateri’s truck, but I have no idea what I’m gonna do with it yet. Maybe a table up at the fire pit? Maybe a swing? I might just hang it from a tree out in the woods?!
The truck sat so long it created divots in the asphalt…! Stuart the tow truck operator pointed that out. Stuart… another positive part of this experience!
And with this blog post I am closing the chapter of my Life which includes Kateri’s 2001 Toyota Tacoma as I take steps further into my Widowhood and root myself more firmly in the present. I am looking forward to finding excitement in the road ahead as I sit behind the wheel of my new truck… and watch the world go by.
I’m lucky, I get to watch the world go by with Amanda and Xander by my side. Live in The Present, people… The Past will always be there tagging along in the back seat for you to check on through the rear-view mirror.
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning 