Does your Dad have a feed truck? When I was growing up, my Dad had an old beater truck that stayed in the barn with feed in the truck bed. When it was time to feed the cows, he’d drive out to the field and scoop it out.
I remember being able to see the ground through the floorboard and that it had many dents, likely from many run-ins with farm equipment.
Come to think of it, over the years, farm trucks were always far from perfect. They weren’t new or flashy, but often second or third hand because it was what we could afford to buy with cash.
My parents never lived outside their means, which is torture for a bratty teenager who was easily embarrassed if I thought we didn’t own the “right” car or clothes, etc.
Just recently, my Dad bought his first nice truck. It’s still not new, but it’s shiny and doesn’t have a dent in it. It warms my heart that he is able to have something nice and you can tell he’s proud of it. But, as you might guess, he doesn’t drive it much. It stays in the garage and he continues to rattle around the country in his old truck, kept specifically to run the snot out of it.
Per usual, one of his children called to borrow a car recently since hers met a deer, the garage, and his own wife’s van. Extra cars are normal on the farm, and from time one of us has had to call and borrow one.
“Can I borrow the 15 passenger van or your farm truck?”, I asked last week. “Mine’s going in the shop.”
He replied that the van was needing tires and his farm truck was pretty rough. “Don’t you want to borrow the silver truck?”, he asked.
My 70-year-old father offered up his pretty, silver, dent-free truck to his daughter, whose car is in the shop for less than stellar driving. A true testament to how much you love your children, even if they are derelict drivers.
I can not be trusted. I can’t even trust myself. And the farm truck is more than I deserve and just what I need to remind me that what I drive doesn’t define me. That what I own doesn’t define me. Or you.
In case you needed this today, you are not defined by what house you live in, what car you drive, or what you own.
Love,
Stef