It’s the only direction God gave us…

My car wreck in January brought with it a number of inconveniences and issues.  The biggest of these was, of course, my car being totaled and the urgent need to find a replacement/successor for my DivaMobile.  Compounding the search was my insistence on purchasing another stick shift.  I am relieved to report that we found a worthy successor for Veronica.  Her name is Patsy Cline Clairmont Cutshaw; Cline for the obvious person, and Clairmont for Patsy Clairmont, a favorite author of mine.  The car is a 2011 Subaru Forester wagon/SUV with a 5-speed manual transmission, and with fewer than 40,000 miles.  So basically, she is just starting to get broken-in.  Lord willing and knock wood, we will have a long, happy and SAFE relationship.

In the car replacement process there were also several conversations with our insurance company.  I am grateful that everyone we dealt with did all they could to make a traumatic situation as stress-free as it could be, from ascertaining the total loss to simplifying the paperwork and getting the settlement check to us as quickly as possible.  Between those funds, our income tax refund and a little bit of savings, we were able to make a decent down payment on Patsy and begin the process of moving forward.

When I wrecked Veronica, lots of stuff got broken, including the watch I was wearing that morning.  It’s not an expensive timepiece by any means, but it has been a favorite of mine for probably 20 years, an easy go-to choice most days.  The actual mechanism of the watch was fine and it continued to run after the accident.  Just the crystal was broken and needed to be replaced.  Getting it fixed was not at the top of the list of priorities in the aftermath so I didn’t get it done right away.

Finally one day a couple of weeks ago, after several calls around town, I found a jeweler with a watchmaker who could fix it for me.  So I went by the jewelry store, got an estimate on the repair, and left it to be fixed.  It didn’t cost much, but it was still probably more than the monetary value of the watch.

I was able to pick up my little watch this past Monday.  What a simple joy to have something back that I had missed so much!  The last tangible thing damaged by the wreck is now made right.

It is not lost on me that replacing a car and fixing a damaged watch both speak of forward movement…the movement of traveling on the road, the forward movement of time.  Sometimes I think what I would be willing to give to make time move the other way…backward to before I wrecked my car, before the people I love started dying, before I learned that the world is not always a fair or beautiful place.  But that is not how it works.

Even when I put my car into reverse, it is for just long enough to get into a position which will allow me to move forward, on to the next place I need to be.  My watch only runs one way and that is forward.  Forward…it’s the only direction God gave us.