The closest I have to death.

I don't know if they were leaving home or headed toward it. Maybe I should know but I don't. 

Keith and Mary we're much to young that this instance and the moments that follow won't be ingrained in their memory. Too young, that this won't have much an impact on them. Even though they were there and I wasn't even alive I wonder if they think about what happened the way I do.

I hold the steering wheel in my hands. The seams splitting at places that his hands also held, although the leather probably wasn't torn when he grasped the wheel. Did he feel as free as i did holding onto the steering wheel?

 I glance down and for a moment it seems as if my hands are not there but replaced by his. I look over at the place she sat. All at once i'm invisible sitting between them watching the scene play out just as she described. 

Grandpa glanced over at Grandma, 

I saw the not so young wrinkles around his young eyes. I've never noticed those before. At least not in the pictures. He must have loved to laugh. I made a mental note. Even if it was just my mind making it up. It's better than nothing. 

"Do you remember what we were doing this very day and time last year?" He asked her with that smile she adored. Being the proper woman she was turned red but couldn't help laughing, 

"Happy 1st anniversary love. You look beautiful tonight." He said. (She did look beautiful.) She grabbed his hand in hers and they rode through the hills in silence. Both beaming with the knowledge that one could love another so much. They could have died right then and there. 

I'm back and I grip the wheel harder as I drive past the cop. I get nervous. I don't know where i'm going but i'm going to drive until I find  a reason to go home. I don't want to be around the people I know. All at once those people could decide to leave my life. Some of which have and just did. I hate that. I hate it. So I decided to leave first. 

I Like to think that he was going home to Grandma when it all happened. Sometimes I wish it was in this car that it happened. That way there would only be room for him and her and she wouldn't have to cry by her self at night when she's alone in her big house. And she wouldn't have to worry about her old age and falling down the stairs alone. I wouldn't have had to find her on the floor...

But it didn't happen that way. 

Grandpa looked over at his daughter. 

"Go to sleep girl." He could tell she was exhausted from taking care of her kid. Luckily Mary and Keith were now sound asleep in the back seats. 

"Okay dad. You sure you don't need a break from driving?"

"I'll be fine Leslie." He said.

She smiled at what a fantastic father she had and fell asleep. 

A little too soon Grandpa woke up as the car started to flip and roll into the ditch. He got one last look at his daughter and grandchildren but the last thing he thought about was his loving wife. Within seconds his whole life with her raced through his mind and he was scared for her. 

And within seconds everything Grandma knew and had ever known was gone. 

I didn't want my mind to go there and i didn't want to picture grandpa in the car in the ditch but I did. I pictured all he had given her and i wondered if that kind of love was possible.

 I didn't drive too far. I ended up at the lake. My mind trailed off to a time when i thought i could die here I thought i loved him. "Even when we're done I will still love you..." He read from a poem he wrote. I looked out at the water and thought of how we didn't even notice it because we were too busy making out in the very car grandpa and grandma kissed. What do I know? I thought I was in love. I felt as though I could die in his arms and I thought he felt the same. Two days later he left. I will die to bring back Grandpa. Grandma deserves to be held again. I will give up all the times i thought I've loved just to bring him back. Because no matter how loud or fast my heart pounds i don't think it can ever match Grandpa's. And no matter how much i try and live, Grandpa will have always lived better. I can see it in Grandma's face when she talks about him. There's something there that I've never seen before. 

Something so sacred and perfect that I would give everything for him and her to be in this car one last time. 

So I went home because grandpa can't. A few weeks later the truck broke. And my dad sold it without telling me. 

Sometimes I feel like grandpa drove off in my truck  (when my dad sold it) and never came back. 

The memory of my grandpa and my car are the closest things I have to death.