The Toyota
I’ve taken a whole lot of reflection away from my book. Most of my thoughts have been serious, revolving around the sacrifices and support that parents, mine and plenty of others, showed their children throughout all of their upbringings. Dedication to their children’s academic careers, general well-being, and livelihoods as a whole have ranged from the more everyday support of encouraging us to do our best and assuring us that they’ll be there to pick up the pieces if and when we fall to the more extremes of commitment: moving homes to get to a better public school district or taking on the onus of funding our college payments and tuitions so that we can focus solely on our studies.
These thoughts have been colored by what exactly our parents did to make these sacrifices collect into a reality of academic success and financial freedom for us.
Take the car, for example. Growing up, I spent many a hour in my family’s beige Toyota Sienna, whether that encompassed being ferried to and from cello lessons, dance class, swim practice, Chinese school, or school. Throughout all of my childhood and extending to packing the minivan full with sheets, a lamp, suitcases of clothing, drawers, tchotchkes, jewelry, school supplies, and whatever the hell else that girls bring upon moving in and out of college, the minivan was a staple.
Along its approximately 200,000 miles and 19 or so years of life, the minivan had many downs to accompany its ups. The automatic sliding door on the right side of the van perpetually stopped working when I was about 4 or 5, and though my parents paid to repair the door the first few times that it broke, the door eventually remained broken and un-automatically-slideable for its next 15 years of usage. Family friends who were particularly close with us knew that the righthand side door of our car was broken and thus knew, just like my parents, my sister, and me, that either the left door was a better shot at entering or exiting the car or that you’d better muscle up to be able to slide and slam the broken automatic door shut, due to its hefty weight.
During my sophomore year of college, at which point the 1999–2000 model Sienna was about 18 years old, my dad hit a deer when driving the minivan to work. By the time that I returned home from winter break and saw the car in its dented state, the entire front bumper of the car had broken off. Our Toyota was not quite aging with grace.
A last down for the car. Having successfully made its way through four college move ins and outs for my older sister, the Toyota was trying its hardest to do the same with me. Though without a bumper, functioning passenger door, or air conditioning, last summer, the car, its parental owners, and I made our way down from New Jersey to D.C. for my junior year, suffering collectively in oppressive August heat and D.C. humidity. We made it to campus and moved in fine, but once my parents left that night to make their return journey home, the Toyota gave out, having celebrated its last collegiate hurrah. On the side of a highway in Delaware, the Toyota gave up, gave out, and broke down, with my parents having thankfully pulled over already before the car gave way for good.
For all of my dad’s jokes that he was content to drive around our 20-year-old, 200,000 miles-sadden, air-conditioning free, deer-dented, bumper-less, non-automatic door Toyota for his four-mile round trip to work everyday, and for the reality that we could have bought and used another car had we truly needed it, the Toyota resembles a comical but clear fact that my parents were always, for as long as I can remember, willing to do whatever it took to support my sister and me.
