I Made a Lot of Mistakes: All Things Go, All Things Go
Today is the eleven-month anniversary of my beloved husband Michael’s sudden death. I can scarcely believe it’s already—and only—been eleven months since I was sawed in half.
One of my recent Stoic challenges is intertwined with my journey through grief and loss. It came with a generous serving of remorse, which I translated into valuable life lessons I hope will help you as well.
In A Tale of Two Scams, I hinted at my own recent experience of being conned.
Here is what happened.
I Made a Lot of Mistakes: All Things Go, All Things Go
One afternoon in early April, I woke up mid-sleep to feed the kitties and check on Lovebug, who was recovering from knee surgery in the bathroom.
Engulfed in an oversized black plush robe with leopard-print cuffs Jenna McCarthy had sent me as a substitute hug and wearing blue-light–blocker glasses another friend calls my “stunner shades,” I had just fed Snickerdoodle and was heading back to bed.
Forty-six seconds after I closed the front door, the doorbell rang, followed by seven swift knocks.
Ding-dong. Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock.
I glanced at the door. “It’s probably a salesperson,” I told myself, resolving to return to bed without answering.
“But what if it’s a neighbor or someone who needs something?” I thought, sensing the knock felt slightly more insistent than a routine visit.
I cracked the door, peering out through my stunner shades.
“Hii!” a top-heavy, short, twenty-something baby-faced man with a beard and tattoos said warmly. Standing at a polite distance, he was wearing a black Chemical Guys t-shirt, shredded jeans, a khaki baseball cap, and white sneakers.
“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for like five months!” he chuckled.
“Oh?” I asked. I recognized him from the security camera footage several months prior, so I knew that was true.
At the time, he was conspicuous enough that I’d shared a still of him with a friend I have been trying to help escape a narcissistic-abusing boyfriend to make sure it wasn’t him. She didn’t recognize him, and I forgot about him since he never came back—until that April afternoon.
“Yeah, I told the neighbors, and I left flyers here,” he said, still grinning.
“Oh? I never got any messages or flyers,” I said.
“Huh, well, maybe they blew away,” he shrugged. “Anyway, I really wanna buy your SRT-4!” he said enthusiastically.
“It’s the exact same model as my late grandfather’s car,” he continued. “Is it 2005?”
“2004.”
“Oh, okay. Anyway, his got sold with the estate, and my mom was so heartbroken. I live about a mile away from here and was driving through the neighborhood when I saw yours. I couldn’t believe it, it’s like an exact match. I wanna buy it and restore it for my mom’s birthday.”
“Oh my goodness,” I said, removing my sunglasses.
“It belonged to my late husband,” I explained, tears streaming down my face. “I’ve been planning to sell it, but I was waiting until my friend finished repairing the dent.”
“I’ve got cash in hand and am ready to buy it right now,” he gushed. “My uncle owns a body repair shop, and we’re planning to restore it together. I have two boys who want to help, so it’ll be like a family project. We will treasure it, I promise you. I’ll take pictures of it restored for you, and I’ll send you a video of my mom reacting to it after I give it to her. It’ll stay in the family, and, once the time comes, we’ll pass it down to my sons.”
“That would be amazing.”
“Can I take a look at it?”
“Let me get dressed first.”
“Is it okay if I take the cover off?”
“Sure,” I said, closing the door. I returned to the bedroom, where I threw on some jeans, a black long-sleeved shirt, and a black bucket hat.
I found the unopened bags of weatherstripping I’d just ordered for $261.61 and met him in the driveway. I explained I had just special-ordered them to replace the driver- and passenger-side seals.
He started telling me about how one time, he’d driven by here with his mom to show her the car, and she got so excited. “I told her you didn’t want to sell, until I talked to you—”
“You did that?” I laughed, understanding he had intentionally tricked her so he could surprise her with it if I did agree to sell.
“Yeah, so, I mean, if we do make a deal on it, hopefully, and her birthday’s coming up in a month.”
“Oh wow,” I gasped. “We’ve gotta act quickly, then.”
“Yeah!” he laughed.
“Oh my God,” I placed my hand on my heart, struggling to figure out a price I would be willing to sell it for under these circumstances.
“What do you think would be a fair price for both of us?” he asked. “I want you to feel good about the amount.”
“People were telling me they couldn’t believe how few miles were on it,” I said.
I was surprised when he didn’t respond to that or the fact that we were the original owners, both of which usually prompted gasps from car aficionados.
We talked a bit about the dent repair my friend (I’ll call her Stacy) had been working on and the moisture on the inside I’d ordered the seals to address. Stacy had already shampooed it four times due to mildew that had accumulated during the rainy season, followed by a chlorine dioxide bomb to eliminate any remaining mold. She then hung moisture absorbers all over the car, and I ordered a car cover to protect it from the elements. The interior now looked brand-new except for a few tears in the driver’s seat upholstery.
“I’m ready to take it right now,” he said. “I don’t even need to drive it or look inside.”
“Oh, gosh.”
“I promise you you’re giving this a forever home,” he assured me. “This car’s gonna go from here, after this is done, and go in a garage.”
“I should probably think about how much I put into it,” I said, contemplating. “I have friends who’ve been telling me it needs to be, you know—”
He interrupted me.
I pondered a bit longer. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re thinking?” I said, my hand returning to my heart.
“What I can afford and what I’m thinking is different.”
“I know, I know,” I nodded.
“What do you think of $3,000?”
Seeing I was aghast, he said, “I’m not trying to lowball you.”
“I know.”
“I found one last week that only has 38,000 miles on it,” he said. “He wanted $4,000 for it, but the problem was, it wasn’t the color, and I would hate to have to paint it.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He waited while I contemplated.
“So many people have been telling me how valuable it is.” I estimated I’d spent around $1,500 “just getting it ready for sale.”
I placed my hand on my forehead, struggling to reconcile what I knew to be the true value of the car and the desire to see it go to a good home.
“I really want you to have it,” I said, my hand hovering in the air.
He talked about the expense that would be involved in getting the dent repaired and restoring it to like-new condition.
“Yeah, I mean,” I took a deep breath, putting my hand over my mouth.
“Let’s look up the Kelly Blue Book value,” I concluded.
He agreed.
I pulled out my phone to start searching for the Kelly Blue Book (KBB) site while he walked to his black Dodge Charger, which was parked on the street behind our driveway with a man in the passenger seat. He retrieved his phone and started tapping away on it as he walked up the driveway.
Once he was back, I said, “I know I should go above Kelly Blue Book because it’s so rare to have one in this condition with so few miles on it, but I also want you to have it.”
“How many miles on it?”
“Just under 29k, I think,” I said, walking to the driver’s side window to check the odometer.
“I’ll just put 25,000, and we’ll go from there,” he offered. “I’ll put ‘Good.’”
I had been told to list it as the top of the Excellent range at a minimum, and Good was two rungs below that.
The man who’d been waiting in the Charger got out of the car, introducing himself as the buyer’s brother, Brandon.
“Hi Brandon,” I said.
“It’s bright today,” he said, shielding his eyes.
“What’s that?”
“The sun is bright today.”
“I know, I know.”
“How ya doin’,” he said, shaking my hand and smiling.
“I realize I don’t even know your name,” I said to the buyer as we laughed.
“I’m Michael,” he said.
“That’s my husband’s name,” I broke into tears, covering my mouth as I wept.
“Really?” he said.
I nodded, still crying.
“What a coincidence is that? It must be meant to be.”
I laugh-cried, looking from him to Brandon and back to him.
Still riding the wave of miraculous synchronicities I’d documented in Wingèd Messengers, I felt this was another orchestrated miracle.
He returned to his phone. “What’s the license plate number?” he asked.
I read it out to him as he entered it.
“So, this one right here,” he showed me the KBB estimates on his phone. The range displayed was around $3,300–5,500 with a private party value in the middle.
“Wow,” I said in disbelief, removing my glasses to scrutinize the screen and confirm it was for the right model.
“Maybe I—” I was trying to understand why the value was so radically lower than when I’d looked it up several months earlier. I rationalized that it must be because I’d entered Excellent instead of Good and it had lost additional value due to the economic downturn.
“That’s with the plate number,” he interrupted.
“Right, wow, interesting,” I looked at the screen again. “Okay, okay.”
He talked about what a dependable car it is.
“It is,” I said. “We hardly ever had to bring it to the shop, like once.”
“Reliable!” he said, impressed.
He talked a bit more about the repairs that would need to be done.
“Can I give you $4,000?”
I pursed my lips and put my hand to my head, then to my chin, letting out a groan.
“As is, done deal.”
“Right,” I said sadly. “I was told to list it for like fifteen to twenty thousand,” I explained my hesitation.
“The ones that go for that high are like ready-to-go shop rate.”
“I totally get it,” I sighed.
“I’m just at that price. I mean, I’ve seen higher on Kelly Blue Book, but I …”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, wiping a tear from my right eye. “Do you think maybe like $4,500 to at least offset what I’ve put into it?”
He agreed, and we shook hands.
“Do you mind if I start it up?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, handing over the keys.
“You wanna grab the title and stuff?”
“Yeah, actually, I think I have the paperwork ready. I’m gonna go grab it.”
I returned with a manila folder. They were inspecting the trunk.
“Stacy shampooed it multiple times,” I said.
“It looks pretty clean in there.”
“Yeah, yeah. We did one of those auto bombs in there to take care of any—”
“Yeah, I got asthma, so odor’s kind of, I’m really, that’s what it smells like when I walked in there.”
He asked Brandon to put the weatherstripping packages in the trunk.
“I’m trying to remember if there’s anything else. Oh yeah, the paint,” I said, going inside to retrieve the primer and matching paint I’d ordered for Stacy to apply after repairing the dent. I also got the seat cover I’d ordered for the driver’s side.
When I got back, he pulled out a wad of hundred-dollar bills and started rapidly counting them aloud in front of me. After he finished, he handed me the stack and said, “You can count it if you want.”
“I trust you,” I said, having already verified the amount while he was counting them out.
I opened the folder and started signing the vehicle bill of sale.
I offered him the pen, but he said he wanted to wait to fill out his portion so he could put his mom’s name on it. He said he’d bring the paperwork to the DMV in a few days and would let me know if he needed anything else, like maybe a death certificate.
“Okay,” I said, caught off guard a bit.
He picked up the folder and said, “I’m gonna start working on this as soon as possible.”
“Soon as you can, take pictures,” I said eagerly, putting my hand on his arm.
“I’ll take pictures and then send them to you.”
“Thank you,” I said, shaking his hand while I backed out of the way so he could access the driver’s side door. “Tripping,” I laughed as I almost stumbled.
We’d already checked the trunk earlier and just found a few jugs of oil and other fluids in there, so I left those. Now we checked the glove compartment and interior for anything else I might need to remove, but Stacy had already cleared everything out.
He removed the moisture absorbers and gave them to me. He climbed into the driver’s seat as I went around to the front of the car. He started it up, and the engine purred.
Brandon pulled out the block of wood Stacy had put behind the front tire and handed it to me, saying, “Alrighty, thank you!”
I set the moisture absorbers down and held up my phone, gesturing to ask if it was okay if I captured him driving off in the car. He nodded, started backing up, paused, smiled, and waved for the camera.
The car roared down the street, followed by Brandon in the Charger. I went inside.
Less than a minute later, I ran out front, trying to catch him, but he was already blocks away.
Brandon had encouraged him to give me his number earlier, and he’d texted me his full name so I could add him to my contacts. I dialed him up.
He answered right away.
“Hi, I’m so sorry, but can I get that braided thing that’s on the keychain?” I was referring to a camo paracord keychain I believe Michael braided himself.
Two minutes later, he pulled up to the driveway, and Brandon rolled up beside him in the Charger. I walked up to the driver’s window as he detached it from the keychain.
“Was your husband in the military?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “He was a Marine.”
He nodded solemnly and returned the paracord keychain, saying, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” I said.
We bid our farewells for a second time, and the brothers drove off.
I walked back into the house and dialed my mom.
“I just sold the SRT-4!”
“You did?!” my mom asked.
We talked for a while as I shared what the buyer had told me, the negotiations, and the mounting synchronicities that had culminated in his name being Michael. I even realized while I was talking to her that $4,500 is what we had paid for our first car back in the early nineties—a blue 1955 VW oval window ragtop Bug.
My mom knew I was struggling financially and was unsure how I would pay taxes by the deadline in a few days.
The night before, she’d even offered to take money out of her paltry savings to help me with taxes. I adamantly refused, knowing how poor she is and how much she needs those funds as she heals from her recent health scare.
The timing of selling the car seemed propitious. It felt like opportunity had literally knocked.
The bank was about to close. My mom raced over so we could drive there together. While she was on her way, I messaged Tonika of Visceral Adventure. I’d needed to get back to her about another collaboration in discussion, but I told her I’d have to reply later, explaining, “I just experienced a miracle.”
I concluded:
I knew it was going to be difficult to let the car go, but God/the Universe/the Tao/Michael couldn’t have scripted a more perfect scenario under which I would feel good about its destination. I’m honestly still flabbergasted.
And now I need to run to the bank to deposit this so I can pay taxes!!
Tonika replied:
Wooooooow!!! What wonderful tomfoolery Michael and the universe have conspired for you! Pronoia, darlin’, pure and true! ❤️
I deposited the cash without incident and returned home.
As my mom dropped me off, I noticed my neighbor, I’ll call him Trevor, in his front yard. He had long admired our car and had even expressed interest in buying it at one point, although he had decided against it because he needed a more practical commuter car and also knew he couldn’t afford what it was worth.
He was one of the people who’d told me he thought I could get well above Kelly Blue Book value for it, especially if I listed it in urban areas.
When I told him I’d just sold it and I got to the part of the story where he offered $3,000, Trevor exclaimed, “That’s like a $20,000 car!”
“I know, I know,” I said, telling him the whole story and saying I’d been willing to sell it for less in exchange for knowing it was going to a loving home and good cause. Then I went on to explain about the KBB estimates he’d pulled up on his phone and how I’d negotiated $4,500 for the final price.
Trevor said something was very wrong with those KBB numbers because he’d looked it up himself and knew it was worth at least double that.
That’s when the suspicion that had been simmering underneath my consciousness started to bubble through, but I wasn’t quite ready to believe I had been so flagrantly duped.
I went inside and fed the kitties, and our best friend called. I talked to her for a while and shared the news about the car.
After I got off the phone, I finally made it to the computer, where I double-checked the KBB values. I entered 29,000 miles and “Good” condition along with the vehicle identification number (VIN).
My stomach sank into my shoes.
I texted the buyer:
I hope I’m not disturbing you too late, and I apologize for bothering you again, but I just checked the KBB value using the VIN and got a very different value when I entered the condition as Good + 29k mileage + zip. My neighbor thought maybe you entered a regular Neon instead of an SRT-4 by mistake, but I know you put the license plate in, and I saw SRT-4 on your app, so I’m not sure what happened, but the value range it’s showing for me is $7,236–9,601 with a private party value of $8,419. I know it’s already a done deal and it’s my own fault for not checking that before selling, but I wanted to let you know for my own peace of mind. I thought I was selling it for the KBB price, and it turns out it was almost half of that (which was already around 1/5 of what I was told to list it for 🤦♀️). I am truly very happy with your having it and fixing it up for your mom, but I also felt a little sick and mad at myself for rushing through the process so quickly and not doing due diligence. I do feel like you are meant to have it and don’t want to sour the beautiful experience, so I am just sending this for transparency’s sake as I know you wanted me to feel it was a fair price, too, so I felt like you should know. Thank you again for caring about the car and giving it a loving home 💗
He replied:
Oh my that’s odd I don’t know if there was a mistake made upon checking the value or not but I do feel terrible but I promise to give this car the love it deserves and cherish it
A moment later, he added:
I do wanna say I’m already spending $4000 to get all the paint and damages repaired on the body and paint so I’m gonna be getting it done I’m very excited haha
Haha.
I’d given him the opportunity to do the right thing, and he didn’t take it. I was starting to feel less and less good about the feel-good story he’d pitched me.
I messaged Tonika about the KBB discrepancy and shared my growing suspicions. She responded:
Hmmm. For whatever reason, it still feels like a lot of moving pieces came to be to end up in the scenario so it still feels like it happened the way it was meant to. If that makes sense.
The next morning, I texted him this letter:
I woke up feeling pretty awful today and suspect maybe you did a bit, too, because you seem like a decent person with a big heart who knows when something’s not right. The beautiful thing is you can still do something about it.
As a moral, upstanding individual, you know there are laws that supersede human ones, and abiding by the law engraved into our conscience is what defines morality, not a piece of paper.
Now that you know the price we arrived at was negotiated based on bad information and I never would have agreed to it had I known the actual KBB value, you have a moral choice before you that is a character-defining moment in your life, something you will either look back on in shame or with pride for the rest of your life.
You have an opportunity to tell your mother, your children, your brother, and all you care for that when you learned the correct value of the car, you stepped up and made it right—even when you didn’t have to.
You helped a grieving widow who is struggling to pay bills by giving her the fair price, the KBB private party value she understood herself to be getting, for a car she and her beloved husband spent 20 years of their life with as their sole car and that now leaves an aching absence in her driveway that is a further reminder of her loss.
You have the power to create a true fairy tale ending, one that will take the story you tell your mom when you give her the restored car to an epic level, a story you can pass down to your sons with the car, and they in turn can tell their children.
As a parent, you understand the pride you feel in your sons when they choose the right path, even—and especially—if it costs them. And you would be a living example to them of the moral character it takes to live your life in love, truth, and light, showing your children what it means to be a man of integrity.
That is a priceless quality no one can ever take away from you without your permission, one that allows you to hold your head high among all you love.
This is a turning point in your life, whether you realize it or not.
I believe things happen for a reason, and that includes the mistake that happened yesterday. We have both been given a gift—the power to fix that mistake before it festers into regret.
Yesterday, it was an error, but if that error goes uncorrected, it will no longer be an error. It will be something you chose not to rectify, and it will hurt both of us forever, perhaps you more so than me, because I was acting in accord with my conscience.
If you are the good-hearted, kind, ethical person I sense you to be, you will, too, and you won’t let that happen—to either of us.
Imagine the day you give your mom the car. Do you want the nagging feelings of guilt and shame tainting that moment and every succeeding moment of your life? Or do you want to be able to tell her, with tears in your eyes, that when you found out there was a mistake in the estimated value, you heeded your conscience and made it right, that you helped heal the already shattered heart of a devastated widow?
I know what my Michael would do.
Thank you for reading this, Michael, and, I hope, for acting on it.
I waited a few hours. No reply.
I dialed the non-emergency police line and reported I had been defrauded in a car sale. The dispatcher said she would have an officer call me back to take a report.
The phone rang, and the officer introduced himself.
I started to tell him what happened, but for context, I prefaced it with, “I lost my husband last July.” I dissolved into tears, unable to continue.
“I was there that morning. I remember,” the officer said softly.
“You were?!” I gasped, erupting into sobs. He had been one of the officers accompanying the emergency personnel when they poured into our house the morning of Michael’s heart attack.
He told me I didn’t need to apologize for crying, expressing empathy for my loss and letting me weep until I composed myself. Then I walked him through the details of the car scam.
He was sympathetic and said I’d been swindled out of $4,000, but since money had exchanged hands and I’d signed the bill of sale, there was nothing he could do from a criminal enforcement angle. He said I could pursue a civil case but would have to consult a lawyer about that.
He also advised me to file a notice of sale with the DMV because if the car is involved in a crime or accident, I could be held liable. I did that right after our call.
Even though it was disappointing to learn the police could do nothing about the situation, it had been deeply healing to talk and cry with someone who had been there the morning of Michael’s death.
So this felt like another healing synchronicity, balm for the wound of my grievous mistake, one that never would have occurred without it.
I told Tonika about filing the police report and the officer being there that fatal morning. She wrote:
If it was a swindle, what a shit karma to take on with lying about the story and everything about the Mum.
Then I shared the follow-up message I’d written to the swindler but never sent, not wanting to invite further contact with potential criminals or alert him I was onto them:
I suspect from your silence you didn’t take my message to heart. Maybe you even laughed at my gullibility and are congratulating yourself for swindling me out of thousands of dollars.
I was an easy mark, I admit it. Thank you for teaching me not to trust strangers, no matter how nice they seem. I can blame being half-asleep, grieving, projecting my own goodwill onto others, but the truth is I made some stupid mistakes, and I learned from them.
If you and Brandon—assuming you gave your real names—are professional scammers, hats off to you for your masterful storytelling and social manipulation techniques. Seriously, that was some grade A bullshitting with just the right amount of heartstring-pulling and soft persuasion. I’m impressed.
And if that is the case—and I would still love for you to prove otherwise because I was genuinely excited about seeing your mom’s reaction to the lovingly restored car—I thought you might want to know I filed a police report.
You know what’s funny? The officer assigned to the case remembers being here the morning I called 911 when Michael was having his fatal heart attack. He has taken a personal interest in you and this car. He collected photos; security footage; and every detail about you two, the SRT-4, and your vehicle.
I suggest not committing any crimes with it or reselling it. I have reported it as sold to the DMV, so they know it’s no longer under my name, and the police are fully aware of this vehicle so will be keeping a close eye out for it. As you know, it’s easy to spot, being so rare.
Your best bet, honestly, is to return the SRT-4 to me along with the weatherstripping; original paperwork; keys; and a new Vehicle of Sale and Notice of Sale transferring ownership back to me, and I will refund your $4,500 in full.
Alternatively, you can provide an additional $4,000 to bring it to the KBB private party value I understood the sale price to be originally.
Whichever option you choose, I will then file a follow-up police report indicating you and Brandon acted in good faith and returned the vehicle for a full refund or paid an additional $4,000. No questions asked, no further investigation, case closed.
If your story was true and you did actually plan to restore and give this to your mom as a gift, you can get the other SRT-4 you mentioned looking at. As you said in your text, you were going to have to paint this one, anyway.
And send me a video of your mom reacting to the car like you promised, please, and we can all have a jolly laugh about this big misunderstanding.
Tonika agreed it was safer not to send it, writing in part:
I like to think that karma comes around and puts anything in balance—anything taken from you will return in a different way and anything taken by someone in ill faith will cost them in the near future.
The next day, she wrote:
Yeah, the radio silence is pretty telling. Damn. I’m sorry, Margaret! I have faith that an extra 4k will find you some other way. The universe always finds balance.
I replied:
Thank you, Tonika. I’m writing about it right now and finding the gifts in the experience.
The past few days, I’ve had Sufjan Stevens’s Chicago playing in my head, and it was only this morning [as] I started to sing this line under my breath that I realized it was a message from my subconscious:
“I made a lot of mistakes”
Then I read the rest of the lyrics and realized this, too, was a gift, particularly the refrain:
You came to take us
All things go, all things go
To recreate us
All things grow, all things grow
We had our mind set
All things know, all things know
You had to find it
All things go, all things go
I told Tonika that song is “particularly special as it’s on the soundtrack of Little Miss Sunshine, our favorite film.”
She shared:
Yeah, I really like that movie. I met Alan Arkin right before the movie came out and he was terribly pleased with it. I thought how funny, this man that has been making great films all his life, is so thrilled by this little movie. And then I saw it and it was truly wonderful!!
I said:
Oh my goodness, what a treasured memory—thank you for sharing that with me! We were so heartbroken when Alan Arkin passed away 💔 We knew it would make rewatching Little Miss Sunshine triply poignant when the time came to rewatch it, but we didn’t get that chance 😭
I returned to writing about the experience, playing the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack as I worked.
Tears dripped down my cheeks as Chicago played and the lines “I made a lot of mistakes” and “All things go, all things go” repeated multiple times.
In examining the lyrics, I realized the latter morphs over the course of the song from “All things go, all things go” to “All things grow, all things grow,” coalescing in the closing stanza:
You came to take us
All things go, all things go
To recreate us
All things grow, all things grow
We had our mind set (I made a lot of mistakes)
All things know, all things know (I made a lot of mistakes)
You had to find it (I made a lot of mistakes)
All things go, all things go (I made a lot of mistakes)
These lines encapsulated the tumultuous brew of grief, loss, regret, and ultimately growth roiling within as I processed this experience.
I remembered the Hoʻoponopono prayer from two of my previous guest posts, The SSRI Suicides: Ode to Wookie Bear and They Know … and They Don’t Care. I imagined saying it to the swindler:
I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
I realized I felt no anger toward him.
It wasn’t him I needed to forgive. It was myself.
And I needed to let go.
I later encountered a passage that underscored this lesson in a post by one of my new favorite Substackers, Sophie Mulgrew:
“I guess,” Giulio said, “it depends how much space you have.” And then he quoted a favorite line from Fight Club. “The things you own end up owning you.”
As I wrote my cherished friend and wise counselor Meredith Miller:
The car had also become a burden not only because of the dent repair going badly but also because I kept finding condensation on the inside, and Stacy and I couldn’t find the leak.…
So maybe it was meant to be—not in the way I wanted, but maybe in the way I needed.
Meredith replied:
I just read your email about the car sale. I can understand why you feel regret and I want to encourage you not to beat yourself up about this. I can also understand how it could feel easier to transfer the pain of the loss of Michael to anger toward yourself about your judgment and decision during the sale of the car. It’s a way of giving yourself some sense of control, which can feel safer and more manageable when emotions and circumstances feel out of control.
The other day while doing dishes, out of the blue I heard you feeling like it was your fault Michael died and I remembered how when we talked on zoom back then you were questioning if you could’ve done something more to save him or prevent it. I told you it wasn’t your fault. Perhaps this unresolved feeling is coming up again disguised through the recent car event. I want to remind you it wasn’t your fault. It was just his time. That loss can be painful to accept so sometimes we blame ourselves in order to feel some sense of control over the uncontrollable and unexpected and unknown.
The guy probably saw an opportunity to make a quick buck by taking advantage, maybe he thought you were desperate to sell it being on the market so long. Who knows what his real motivation was or if it was even for his mother. Maybe he was just going to flip it, I don’t know. But his flippant “haha” response shows his lack of conscience and I doubt any emotional appeals will move him to do anything different. Though I agree with you that karma always comes around and nothing goes unwitnessed in this universe.
I agree the dent would probably reduce thousands of dollars from the value. And mold is a huge issue, which I’m not sure if he was aware of that, but he bought a car as-is and he will have to deal with whatever is wrong with it because it was his responsibility to do due diligence as the buyer.
That’s amazing the officer you spoke to about this was there the morning Michael died. And that he remembered you. An incredible synchronicity and also perhaps indicative of the unresolved feelings from that morning that I sense this is actually bringing up for you. It’s also good you reported it and did all the things to remove your name from the vehicle in case the guy does something shady.
I can’t tell you what this story means or how it’s serving you because it’s your story to tell and your perspective that matters. Probably you know that Michael wouldn’t want to see you beating yourself up about it because he loves you. Maybe you can reach out to him in your mind and heart to see what comes to you in the form of spirit messages.
Almost two weeks ago, I saw a dragonfly decoration on a house next to the park. It’s not a good photo because I tried to take it without looking like I was being too nosy. I’d forgotten to send it to you. That same day I saw one almost like that at Home Goods and almost bought it but it was $70 so I let it go. With everything going on, I forgot to text you about the dragonflies. Sounds like that was shortly after the car sale. Maybe it’s a sign that all is well and everything is going to be okay.
Peter Crone says “Everything that happened couldn’t have happened any other way because it didn’t.” I love that. And I love you.
I replied:
I started sobbing so hard while reading that, Rusty came up all concerned and then jumped in my lap and is purring and looking up at me to make sure I’m okay 😭💓 Thank you so much for the gift of your profound wisdom and compassion, Meredith. I haven’t finished that post yet, and this may be what I needed to bring it to completion. I love that quote and I love you, too, Meredith 💞 I am so grateful for your precious friendship and loving guidance throughout this journey 🕊
The car is gone.
All things go, all things go
The car is not Michael.
All things grow, all things grow
The car is part of our history, but that history cannot be eradicated. It lives on as long as I live on—and even beyond that … because it happened.
I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
While I was jotting down notes for this essay after telling Tonika my revelation about Chicago, the final song on the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack approached: How It Ends by Devotchka.
I press pause, knowing I’m not ready to ignite that emotional Mount Vesuvius.
I get diverted to other projects. I return to this a couple months later.
I complete the above essay in one marathon session. As the day nears its end, I prepare to press play.
And you already know
Yeah, you already know
How this will end
But first, I have to feed the kitties and clean their litter boxes, one of many chores I inherited from Michael.
As I’m scooping out the litter boxes, my mind continues working on the closing lines, contemplating a path where I put off playing How It Ends until tomorrow.
Something about the lines being written in my head evokes a familiar sensation. It reminds me of something. What is it … it’s not the words but the structure, the writing in the present tense about actions as they unfold.
That’s it!
I feel its contours like an autistic savant apprehending the number of matchsticks that just fell on the floor without having to count them.
It’s a poem by my favorite poet.
Not just any poem.
My favorite poem by her.
Not just my favorite poem by her.
The poem I need right now.
A poem about loss.
What I lost. “What We Lost.”
Another gift granted.
Not what I expected,
not what I already knew,
but how it will end.
What We Lost
by Eavan Boland
It is a winter afternoon.
The hills are frozen. Light is failing.
The distance is a crystal earshot.
A woman is mending linen in her kitchen.
She is a countrywoman.
Behind her cupboard doors she hangs sprigged,
stove-dried lavender in muslin.
Her letters and mementos and memories
are packeted in satin at the back with
gaberdine and worsted and
the cambric she has made into bodices;
the good tobacco silk for Sunday Mass.
She is sewing in the kitchen.
The sugar-feel of flax is in her hands.
Dusk. And the candles brought in then.
One by one. And the quiet sweat of wax.
There is a child at her side.
The tea is poured, the stitching put down.
The child grows still, sensing something of importance.
The woman settles and begins her story.
Believe it, what we lost is here in this room
on this veiled evening.
The woman finishes. The story ends.
The child, who is my mother, gets up, moves away.
In the winter air, unheard, unshared,
the moment happens, hangs fire, leads nowhere.
The light will fail and the room darken,
the child fall asleep and the story be forgotten.
The fields are dark already.
The frail connections have been made and are broken.
The dumb-show of legend has become language,
is becoming silence and who will know that once
words were possibilities and disappointments,
were scented closets filled with love letters
and memories and lavender hemmed into muslin,
stored in sachets, aired in bed linen;
and traveled silks and the tones of cotton
tautened into bodices, subtly shaped by breathing;
were the rooms of childhood with their griefless peace,
their hands and whispers, their candles weeping brightly?
Postmortem of a Con … and a Plot Twist
In the next part of this series, I conduct a postmortem of this con, identifying the mistakes I made so I—and you—can avoid similar chicanery in the future.
In the concluding essay, I will share a plot twist so unexpected, it utterly transformed my feelings about this experience.
© Margaret Anna Alice, LLC
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This story abt the car and your beloved husband hits home. I’m so sorry. Thank you for sharing! May God comfort you.
Even knowing this story, it hit so hard, being fleshed out so poignantly. I got to the Little Miss Sunshine clip and watched it with tears flowing down my cheeks. Goddess, I love that movie. I'd forgotten that it was the dad who first gets up on stage with her. Oh Olive. She's the reason I do everything.
I played that Devotcha song on my Third Paradigm radio show and it always reminds me of that era. So evocative. Thank you for sharing this, Margaret.