Lunar Silver tears

Part two. (You can catch up on Part One here.)

Lunar Silver. That felt fancy. But really, I would just have said, “silver with a hint of blue.” Which, actually, was why I didn’t love it. It was the only van we found with all the details we wanted and needed, we had driven to Greeley to buy it, so clearly I wasn’t turning back now on account of color semantics. We had the kids in tow, it was dinner time, the sales lady had stayed late after we called on the way telling her we were committed to purchase. Now was not the time to split hairs over whether it was Lunar Silver or “silver with a hint of blue.”

But I dont want a light blue minivan.

It’s not light blue. Stop it. Stop ruining this for everyone. Can’t you just be happy? Live a little.

It’s light blue to me.

Josh asked the sales lady if there were any other colors in this exact model. He knows me. He knows that as I casually nodded in agreement that the Lunar Silver was an interesting color, the fact I spoke no actual words meant I wasn’t at peace. The sales lady thought there might be, and upon return from checking her inventory pointed us in the direction of the only other van on their lot that fit the bill.

There it was. Modern Steel. The color of the minivan we’d sold in February as we closed the door on life as we knew it. The color of the minivan that had carried Beau, laid down in the back floorboard, back and forth to the hospital as chemo rendered him unable to sit upright. The color of the minivan we’d driven to the hospital in while I labored in the back, ready to give birth to Selah. The color of the minivan that had grown old with sharpie stains (Jude….) and teenage boy smell (Jaylen). The color of the minivan that when we purchased it used in 2013, was the nicest car I’d ever owned. The color of the minivan that made me a mama.

—-

I cried when they drove away in her. Which felt stupid because it was a car, and completely accurate because it was just as much a part of my mothering as any other material object I possessed. It had been with me on each nook and cranny of this long, hard road and now we were sending her off to be that for another family.

We’d found the perfect fit. Not because we had tried, but because they had been given to us. By Facebook, by Fate, by God, I don’t know anymore. Many people were interested, but the family that showed up was a sweet young family. A mom and dad trying to make it work. A son who had been diagnosed with Autism a couple months before, who screamed and kicked in their small sedan because he was too close to his sister. The little sister that was just younger than Selah, a towhead, whose whole life would be altered by her brother’s diagnosis, but was too little to know. The dad was a worship pastor who had been offered a job in Ft. Collins and in faith had moved his little family from all their people in Texas to follow the call. The week they arrived, there son was diagnosed.

I know what it’s like to feel like everything is falling apart. I know how it feels to follow the call and have it lead to a mighty storm.

They didn’t have much, they were borrowing a car from a friend of their’s because their Camry which was on it’s last leg, finally gave out. Gave out in the parking lot of the doctor office at the visit when the boy was diagnosed. When the mom saw our minivan, she held back the hot tears that proved this was about so much more than a van. The space. The comfort. This was going to work out. It was all going to work out.

I know how that feels mama… No, it’s not dumb. Sometimes something like a van makes you feel like that. Like it will all work out.

–

I stood in the car lot, halfway between Lunar Silver and Modern Steel and tried like hell to make a decision. The sales lady loved the silver, Josh thought it was cool too, but I couldn’t rest in it. All I saw was hints of light blue. I was pulled to the Modern Steel. But why? Was it because I am a creature of habit. Because Modern Steel was the only color I’d ever had to look for in a parking lot. Because I didn’t like changing things up. I like the room I’d memorized.

Sable. The shimmery brown color. It’s called Sable.

Why did I remember that? Why in this moment, in the car lot, when I needed to decide between Lunar Silver and Modern Steel? Why was I recalling the shimmery brown color that I couldn’t recall in the six months prior, all those times I’d tried to pull it up on-line.

Sable.

Sounds like Stable.

Josh saw that I was in that space. The space we refer to as ‘swirling.’ I couldn’t make a decision because I’d lost my ability to prioritize. He lovingly reminded me it was my choice. I lovingly reminded him that wasn’t helpful.

Can’t someone just make the choice for me? Don’t make me choose Lunar Silver, don’t make me flex the “I want to be carefree” muscle, to walk away from the minivan color that means more than any color should.

“I feel like I want the one we had, because it’s what we had. I don’t want the new color because it just makes me feel like I am walking away from…our old life… But then I feel like the new color could be a new start. And I just wish things felt more stable”

Stable, but really you just want things to feel easier.

“I just need a minute to myself, so I can say goodbye to it. ” I said as I held back the hot tears that proved this was about so much more than a car color.

“Ok, I’ll take the kids to the showroom. Take your time babe”

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You can keep reading Part 3 here.