Goodbye, my lovely Odyssey

It was dusk when Felix and I saw the red car on display. It seemed like a cross between a station wagon and a van, comfortably fitted six to seven passengers excluding the driver. "I think I like this car, especially because it’s red. It looks like a funky family car," I told Felix, who smiled at me. That smile told me he would do what it took to make the office buy the car for me. It was 1996.

Ten, almost 11 years ago! How time flies, I think, as I stand perched to sell my lovely Odyssey. I got the car when I was still president of an advertising agency. First, we were very successful then all business turned. It was difficult to pick up even then. Time flew by. One day I realized I was growing old and needed to take a master’s degree so I could teach later on. I enrolled at the Asian Institute of Management and a year later graduated with honors and a Masters in Entrepreneurship.

Within that school year disaster struck. One morning I woke up and half my face was swollen. I also had a fairly high fever. That dragged on for days, getting no better until finally I dragged myself into the hospital. I required an emergency operation. I had an infection in my – was it carotid or parotid – gland and it was making its way to my brain. That kicked off the beginning of my seven years of bad luck.

That surgery was just the start of my grief. It gave me a crooked face. I became very unhappy about things at the office. I decided to quit. They gave me my Odyssey as a going-away present. I took my lovely red car with me. It rode smoothly, like an airplane. I loved it still, had not for a moment stopped.

I gave up smoking cold turkey and put on 30 pounds. We commuted between my lovely home in Calamba and Makati where I taught writing. We lived through that happily enough. Then I had a stroke. My mind went completely blank. It recovered slowly. First, I was just staring into space. Then my eldest daughter flew home and housed me in her Rockwell flat. "It’s for sale," she said. "Just live there and keep showing the place. I have a maid who will look after you and your Odyssey can park there." We all settled in and we were once again happy.

Then one day quite suddenly the apartment was sold. I had to move out really quickly, had to look for an apartment and move fast. I wasn’t even fully recovered but I was getting there. By early September 2005 two years had passed since my stroke. I was recovering well, teaching regularly, earning enough money to support myself then my mother came home with Alzheimer’s Disease. Still my Odyssey was around helping out, taking mother for drives, helping me live some kind of life.

We all survived 2006. Finally I lost the last of the 30 pounds I put on when I stopped smoking five years earlier. Late last year I did a mental list of all the things I would have to sell in 2007: my car, my house, the things in my house. Maybe I should begin with my house, I thought. Then suddenly one day my son called. He needed a garage for his car. Could he park it here? "But I have my car," I said, then suddenly stopped. "No, wait, if I can use your car once in a while, you may park it here," I said. We agreed. Now I have sold my Odyssey.

My first attempt at selling it failed. I could not find the car’s papers. They were delivered before my stroke, you see, and I could not remember where I placed them. I went to look for them in Calamba, could not find them but then I sent my driver and he found them. I couldn’t find the original registration papers but one morning I woke up clearly remembering I had put them in a blue folder. Where was that folder? I looked for it, found it. Now I was ready to sell but had lost my buyers. Then one afternoon while I was knitting there were the buyers as big as life and ready with cash. Looks like the end of my seven years of bad luck.

My heart breaks at the thought of it. The red car had been a part of my life for 10 whole years. Part of my joy and my pain, driving in the sun or rain, it is a wonderful vehicle that has taught me many lessons, not the least of them, the true value of love. Love is always there, will always remain, will linger forever even after it is time to say goodbye. There is a time to say goodbye to all things. My time has begun and not yet ended. It is now time to say goodbye to my lovely Odyssey, which caught my eye and heart, one afternoon at dusk.

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