Waking Up With A Broken Heart

Simultaneous Joy & Grief…and then a Sign April 12, 2025

Posted by Waking Up With A Broken Heart in Uncategorized.
Tags: cars, Family, grief, joy, life, short-story, signs, writing
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Grief is never ending. Sometimes it wraps itself around joy so tightly that the two become indistinguishable – happiness cloaked in heartbreak. Right now I am sad, deeply, physically sad, the kind of sadness that makes it hard to breathe like my heart is bleeding and my chest is collapsing under the weight of it.

It’s relentless, unforgiving.

I feel like I am slowly losing the last tangible pieces of my world with him, little by little everything connected to his presence seems to be slipping away, and it’s so f****** unfair.

Life isn’t supposed to be like this… at least I never believed it could be.

The strange thing is, this grief is wrapped around something that should be a moment of celebration – a moment of happiness.

Let me back track, for the last over 15 years I’ve driven the same Toyota Sequoia. So many have seen me in that truck, wrapped in colorful Childhood Cancer graphics including a picture of my precious baby, hauling supplies for events, running errands, always on the move, but to me that Sequoia was more than a vehicle.

It was the backdrop to our story.

It carried Sal and I through hospital visits, road trips to Disney, Universal, Sea World, so many moments during his battle.

It’s the truck I drove when Sal and I were home from whatever state we’d returned from for treatment.

It’s the one I drove him to appointments in, the one I cried in after really hard days, and smiled and laughed in when he was feeling good.

He always sat in the middle seat, the one where I could look up and see him in the little round mirror.

I could hold his hand as I drove, or sneak looks at him while he was sleeping, eating snacks or watching one of his favorite DVDs.

That little mirror let me mother him in motion, watching him, comforting him, loving him while still moving forward. Sometimes I’d see him smile, sometimes I’d see his pain that he tried to hide. He never wanted me to worry, always saying I love you mommy, even when he was hurting, and I’d do everything I could to keep him comfortable, one hand on the wheel, the other passing snacks, or putting his favorite dvd in the player, singing with him, smiling at him, just being with him.

That truck was our sanctuary, but life moves forward, even when your heart doesn’t.

The sequoia had started leaking during storms. The exterior began falling apart. I’ve known for a while that it was time. Sammy and I had been looking for a new truck for over a year, but nothing felt right.

Maybe because nothing could. Nothing could hold those memories the way that truck did.

Last week we found a beautiful new truck, big enough to hold all of the gear for my events for kids fighting cancer, just like the old one did. But I didn’t expect to bring it home that day. I don’t know, maybe I thought I’d  have more time, which is silly to say – more time to say goodbye to a truck? Really? Or maybe I thought it would just always sit in my driveway, a precious symbol of a time I so fiercely hold onto.

But suddenly I was cleaning it out, collecting his DVDs, his little action figures, his dollar bills, and even a few of his leftover medical supplies – little sacred relics of a life too short with my baby, yet so deeply lived.

I know a truck is just ‘a thing’, I do, but it’s a thing that was piece of him – of us, and letting go of anything that was a part of our time together, breaks my heart even more.

So there I sat at the dealership, sobbing while we were signing papers. I am sure people stared, confused by the woman crying over buying a brand new vehicle – proof that you never know what the person next to you at a store, in a park, or even sitting beside you in a in a car dealership is carrying inside.

The salesman was young, probably no kids of his own, but I could see he felt bad for me. He promised to take good care of it. What a nice thing to say. I wanted to scream at him, – ‘no you won’t, you are going to rip it apart, paint it and erase any little sign of our existence in it’ – but he was sweet and kind and he will probably never forget this very unusual sale.

Every one wants something shiny and new. Me? I just want to hold on to everything that was a part of my baby. 

Just like a quiet wink from the universe, an (expected) sign perhaps, when I got home I saw an email from Google Maps. A Congratulatory email. It was a photo of Heroes Hangout that had just reached 10,000 views. The photo? It was my old truck parked proudly out front of the Hangout. Maybe that really was a sign – a message from my precious baby. Maybe he was saying ‘It’s okay, mom. It’s just a truck. I’ll ride with you no matter what you’re driving. I will always be next to you’ at least that’s what I hope it meant, what I want to believe it meant because really, otherwise why would that email have been sent the same day?

So if you see me driving my new truck, just know this. I love it. I really do, but it hurts – physically hurts. My chest aches when I climb in and the tears just stream down my face, but I know it will get easier. One day I’ll be able to drive it without tears in my eyes. One day this new truck will hold new memories as well. Not with him, but with him next to me.

 It’s funny, isn’t it? That a machine can mean so much to someone. That someone could unknowingly buy a used car and never know it carried someone’s entire heart for over a decade. Most people worry about inheriting problems with a used vehicle, but sometimes they’re inheriting love, memories – a story, like mine….