Not Just a Truck.

This weekend I had a hard time letting go.

I have a mid size SUV that just doesn't seem to be enough room for a dog, a baby and all the stuff that goes with both. A normal trip down to Mass has at least one seat down, Millie next to Chase and we are just plain squished. Not to mention I am nervous/paranoid that I am going to get in an accident and Chase is going to be squished by all our stuff because we have no gate holding Millie back and lots of bags floating around in the car. I know it would be giving Alec "Mr. Safety First" a million heart attacks every time I get in the car. I know that if he were here, we would be looking for a bigger car for me, and also a bigger truck for him (he always wanted a Tundra).

Anyways, I had to say good by to his silver Tacoma truck and it was hard. I dont usually get attached to cars, especially in the business of sales, because I am always in my car and actually get so sick of it really quick. But this was different. This was Alec's truck.

He picked me up in his truck for our first date. I will never forget it, he came over and had a bouquet of purple flowers because "they were the same color as my eyes" he said. (It wasn't until later I learned that he was color blind). He took me out to eat and I felt like I was in in his truck from then on. Two weeks after our first date he brought me to buy my first mountain bike and every day after work we would throw our bikes in the back of the truck and head out to find the roughest and toughest of trails. We had so many memories in that Tacoma. We brought Millie home for the first time in his truck, and she was so nervous she threw up all over the front seat (and me). We made numerous trips up to Baxter, Bar Harbor, snow boarding to Sunday River, we went hunting, ice fishing, brought the boat to the marina, and out for adventures on Sunday afternoons, the two of us and Millie.


Alec and I in his truck on my 26th Birthday, I am trying to show off my new earrings...he bought be diamond earrings after only being together for 5 months, YES, I LOVE THIS MAN!

Blasting all the homemade CD's I made Alec for our road trips...Toby Keith, Eddie Vedder, Mat Kearney, signing along so goofy to songs by Johnny Cash and June Carter. We made so many trips to Home Depot, and bringing home our Christmas tree in that truck was always a story, yes it would hang over the back by 10 feet and drag all the way home.

Alec and I would ride around during or after a big storm, checking out the incredible waves from his truck...


A little snow never stopped the Tacoma...


Alec would bring a truckload of family and friends down to the beach, we would pile (illegaly) in the back of his truck and head a mile down the road where he would dump us out and head off with the guys for a day of fishing on the boat.
Liz and Brian in the back of Alec's truck.

Me in the back of his truck, headed to the beach.




Millie and Alec in his truck, on our way to hunt somewhere.


And I thought this was funny, his gun next to my bag...I could never really be transformed into a true Maine women, still had to have my Louie with me.

One memory from way back...
I was calling on an office that Alec just so happened to have been at. He was getting into his truck. The receptionist at this particular office had a huge crush on Alec but didn't know we were dating at the time. She saw me come in, grabbed me and brought me over to the window..."See that guy, I am so into him...look at the way he gets into that truck" she said. I peered out the window, "Yeah, he's pretty cute" I agreed.

And a recent memory...
Those pesky chipmunks who decided to store 800 acorns in his engine...which somehow got into his heater vents, which some how cost a couple hundred dollars to fix, which led him to buy a Beebe gun and hunt for chipmunks on Sunday afternoons. I will never forget the 10 gallon bucket he showed me, half full of acorns. Yes, the chipmunks had to go.

Then one time on a trip to climb Mt Katahdin, we left at 3:00am to get a spot, I was never overly enthused about getting up this early to hike for 11 hours, but Alec always was. We were driving down the bumpy dirt road that led to the start of the trai and he was going on and on about the suspension and torque and all this other man-truck talk I had no clue, "really, thats so awesome" I replied. He caught me..."You are being sarcastic, you dont care at all about what I am talking about do you!" We laughed for years about that.

Everything about that truck was Alec. The 2 NRA stickers, the "York County Gun Club" sticker, the Goose Rocks Beach sticker. He could back it in and out of our long driveway with a 21 foot boat attached no problem. He could put it in four wheel drive and plow through snow, mud and the back woods of Maine without a second look. I had even bought him a gun rack for Valentines Day one year...what man from Maine doesn't have a gun rack in his truck?

While cleaning it out, I came across his work boots, a hard hat, lots of fishing maps, his fishing licence, and our membership cards to the gun club. It was hard. I was sad. Really sad. Since Alec has passed, I have spent many quiet moments in his truck, just sitting there, letting it run for 30 minutes or so. I took it for a spin here and there, making sure it was still running. But the time came where I realized that I am paying insurance for this truck and it is losing value each day it sits in our driveway. I thought long and hard about what he would want me to do.

So, I decided to trade in my car, and his truck and to be safe I would get a bigger SUV. I know Alec would want that. As I cleaned out what was left, I asked him for a sign. Something that would tell me I was doing the right thing. Literally, as I was asking him, I looked down and found 4 sand dollars and 3 pieces of white beach glass in a little storage space I had never noticed or seen before. Alec was obsessed with finding sand dollars and beach glass (I always would find green because he was colorblind and he could only find white). I knew this was Alec, telling me I was doing the right thing.

That is not to say it wasn't sad and heart breaking watching his truck pull out of our driveway for the very last time. I hated every second of it.

I loved that truck. I loved Alec in the truck. I loved us in that truck.

But a truck is a truck. Right? I have these memories stored in my mind, and now I have some of them written down. I am OK. I will get through this. I will see Alec again in that truck. He will pick me up and we will be together forever.