Tomorrow we say goodbye to Tilly, our 1999 Daihatsu Mira Gino. I have been emotional about this all week, because I anthropomorphise her.
She is cute; she is stalwart. She loves to wait for us under the shade of trees. She is fearless on rocky roads. She delights in hooning – going a little too fast – and she wants to believe that all lights are green. We treat her to car washes and she drives more proudly after them.
We’ve travelled together with her almost 50,000 km, taking her on a special drive on her favorite forest road to turn over to 100,000. She’s been up Mt. Fuji and all the way west to Shikoku. We’ve driven in snow and rain. She’s parked overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Seto Sea, and Tokyo Bay; enjoyed a wide range of ferry trips; and ferried me back and forth to the grocery store so many times I no longer need to steer her there.
She’s had all kinds of adventures. Futatsuyama got locked inside her one night, draining her battery by turning on the headlights and stereo and chewing all the door locks trying to get out. She still bears those scars. She saved Tod and our guests in an accident (on Tod’s 50th birthday!) by rolling into the bamboo lining the mountain road. That valor earned her the Tilly Good Car ear decorations.
Tilly has been a key part of our life here in the countryside and I am grateful to her. And I am tearfullly sad to send her off to the Good Car Retirement Garage but at almost 23 years on the road, it is time for her to have a rest.
