So, I must admit that this post has been a long time coming as I am now just speaking about my little brother, John…
My car journey could not even come about without mentioning my first co-pilot/passenger/wingman. Growing up as a big brother, I used to always blame him for various things. In my opinion, most of them were definitely warranted because he was always messing with my stuff. From breaking my toys to borrowing my clothes, to, well… you get the idea. But John was honestly a beautiful soul who wanted nothing more than to give and be apart of the action. I was 7 years old and we were still living up on the mountain in Copper Hill outside of Roanoke VA. My father told me and my brother to wait here while he ran in the house to get something. We were both sitting in his Red Datsun 5-speed single cab up against the brick wall in our drive way. I still to this day don’t even know what I was thinking but I decided to try to shift the gears like I was allowed to do when we would enter our driveway to our house on my father’s lap. I accidently pulled it out of 1st gear and the truck began to roll backwards. In what I thought was the right thing to do, I opened the driver door and desperately tried to apply the foot brake. As the driver door came against the brick wall going up our driveway, it got caught and immediately inverted to the point where it literally bent all the way backwards against the left quarter panel. My Dad came racing out of the garage door and yelled, “What da hell happened?” I was so scared and then I looked at my little brother, barely 2 years old, who was in the car the whole time strapped in the car seat looking puzzled. I said, “John kicked it out of gear and I tried to stop it from rolling back!” Now I will admit my dad is a very patient person… but a very strong, stern disciplinarian. He was known all around Roanoke VA as a no-nonsense Principal and somebody you don’t want to mess with on any day of the week. I said to myself, God if you can get me out of this, I swear I will never do this again. I don’t think he even believe that what I said was true, but somehow, he let it go… From that day I had to look at that truck with the door frame bent all out of shape until my father traded that truck in for a Blue Chevy S-10 single cab. To this day I can still remember John’s facial expression as if to say, “I don’t know what’s going on..” Luckily for me, John wasn’t very talkative back then or else he certainly would have said what really happened.
When our father remarried in 1997, my brother and I drove to the church for the wedding in my hand-me-down 1983 Toyota Tercel Wagon. That car I remember was so underpowered, I remember I almost couldn’t make it up a hill around my mom’s neighborhood without hitting the gas really hard. Someone at the wedding took a picture of my brother and me in that car when we were leaving the ceremony and going to the reception hall. We were both smiling, if I remember correctly, I believe we were both cracking jokes on each other.
My first year out of college, I bought my very first vehicle from Rick Woodson Honda; a Forest Green 1998 Acura TL 2.5. It had the cleanest beige interior, all alloy wheels (Factory stock) and I even added a remote start system from Circuit City (one of my summer part time jobs back then). My brother wanted to use the Acura for his school prom. Now knowing how protective I was about sharing my stuff with my brother for obvious reasons, I was somewhat reluctant on letting him have the vehicle for a night. But some of my high school friends I grew up with thought it would be a good idea to let him use my car and I could just hang out with them instead, so I agreed. I remember coming home later that night well after 2 or 3am after playing cards and hanging out. My friends dropped me off and I came in to the house and noticed my brother asleep on the couch in our living room. Now, instantly my mind did a quick double-take because for one my car was not in the drive way and I was expecting him to be home so early because he and his prom date were supposed to be at their high school’s lock-in event after prom had ended. I go into the kitchen and my mom is sitting trying to talk with me and before I could even say anything, she said “Now don’t be mad at your brother, but…” I couldn’t even hear the rest. Right then and there I knew that he had wrecked the car. After my mind cleared for a minute, my mom said again John fell asleep at the wheel and ran the car up on a curb. She then told me the vehicle wasn’t really wrecked but the tires and wheels may need to be replaced. I took a deep sigh of relief and walked into the living room where John was waking up. John began telling me how he nodded off and he said his date grabbed the steering wheel just in time before the vehicle up into a building. I told him that I’m glad he was okay. I said, “I can replace the vehicle, I can’t replace you…” He instantly welled up with tears and gave me a hug. I guess he was afraid I was going to be really mad at him. But I thought about it and I honestly felt like at least he was okay. That’s all that truly matters, you know?
As much as we love cars, we can never replace our family… John passed away during the tail end of COVID on Jan 25th 2021… He was 37 years old. Looking back on it now, I wish I had more time to tell him how much I loved him. He had called me a couple of days before he passed to talk and I was busy assisting a client of mine but promised him I would call him back. My client’s son had an epileptic seizure and went critical right at my desk and we had to call emergency services to get him some help. I had forgotten to call my brother back what with all that took place … To this day I wish I had one more to speak to him but I know he is in a better place and he’s smiling… If there is anything we can take from our experiences, it is never to take for granted the fleeting moments we have in life, whether behind a wheel or with each other….