Saying goodbye is never easy.  I’ve had to do it a lot over the last year or so.  Sometimes it’s just easier to say it in pictures instead of trying to write things down.  It’s easier to sit back and watch the memories roll by instead of making an effort to recall them and put them into context.

Certain memories come quickly.  Seeing the Jeep sitting at the end of an acreage driveway and commenting how much I hated the color and would never be seen driving it…yet finding myself taking it home the very next day.

The exciting drive to Saskatoon to pick up Emily so we could attend our first ghosttown convention together as a couple.  The weekend of uninhibited fun followed by the long drive back to Calgary alone after saying goodbye to her.  It was likely the longest and most empty drive of my life.

I’ll always remember us touring the Badlands at Dorothy and East Coulee.  Letting Emily drive “the tank” for a bit. 

Our Christmas road trip, with so many stops along the way and getting stuck in the snow at Bounty and having to dig the Jeep out of the drift just enough so it could get us home safely.

And, of course, the final memory.  My mind hyper-recording the memory recording the final seconds together as we hit black ice on Highway 1A.  My failed attempts to bring the Jeep back into something resembling a straight line, the sideways slide into the ditch and the rollover.  The sensation of hanging upside down from the seatbelt, the effort to free myself and crawl out through the passenger window into the mud.  To come through a crash essentially unscathed is a testament to its ability to always get me home safe, even if it couldn’t make that final drive with me.

Yes, putting that into words would be too much work.

Assuming it will be officially written off next week — insurance adjusters never put a value to memories — it’s only fitting to give it one final lasting tribute.  Farewell, old friend.