Today is the day that I officially give up my car. Her name is Sadie, and she is a 2001 champagne-colored Hyundai Elantra with a manual transmission. She is so broken and old now that it is unkind to apply any more band-aids to her tumors. She was meant to safely carry me, and because she can no longer do that I must respectfully retire my sweet friend. I am beyond bereft.

You could argue that it’s unhealthy to be attached to things, but I always knew she carried my late grandfather’s spirit, and loved her even more for that.

Nathaniel Rosman, my father’s father, a Jewish immigrant from Poland who was prone to spontaneously bursting into song and doing a little soft-shoe on the street, bought her for me five days before September 11, 2001, which was a few months before he died after ninety years on the planet. On the day we bought her, someone snapped a picture of Grandpa and me, and I kept it in her every day I had her on the road. She was the first car I ever had, and I felt him in her—he loved cars so much and was so proud to be able to buy one for his first grandchild. Certainly she survived more than you’d ever expect, just like he did, and she protected me from so much more, just like he wished to. She also made so many of my dreams come true, including an independence that I didn’t know you could achieve when you chose to live as a single woman and didn’t have much money. Continue Reading →