People say that you can tell a lot about someone by the type of car they drive.
If that is true, then at first glance, Emily would be a soccer mom with 7 kids…because she drives a 1997 Chevy Conversion Van. Yes, the one in the picture.
This van was a gift from my parents our senior year of college. It was awesome to have in college…I think the record of people we fit at one time was 16! After we got married, Em and I traveled for a bit. We drove the van to places like Chicago and Toronto, and even went to NYC for New Year’s Eve! Whenever we got tired, we’d just pull into the nearest Walmart and sleep until the morning :) Those were fun memories, but a conversion van isn’t exactly an ideal car for a young couple in the DC area.
To be honest, the van has seen better days. For starters, it’s missing the rear view mirror (an easy enough fix, but Em has assured me that she doesn’t really look behind her that much anyways?). The driver’s side door barely opens due to a run-in it had with a deer. The AC and speakers blew out a few years ago on one of our roadtrips, and the brakes are so worn from years of use that you need a short runway to come to a complete stop! But hey, at 243,000 miles the van is still going strong!!
So why am I telling you all of this? Is it to brag about how sweet of ride we own? Actually, I’m saying this to tell you something about my wife that you’d never hear from her. Em is selfless. See, we also own a 2013 Ford Focus, but because I have the longer commute to work and the van guzzles gas like a fish drinks water, Em lets me drive the Focus.
At first glance, the van sure doesn’t fit Em’s personality, but I think it actually tells a lot about who she is as a wife and a person. I know she may sometimes feel embarrassed as she attempts to squeeze between a BMW and Lexus in her office’s parking lot, but when I see her rolling up after work in our full-size conversion van, it reminds me of her selflessness and contentment. I have never once heard her complain…she is just thankful for a vehicle that will get her successfully from A to B instead of worrying about things like leather seats or power mirrors (remember, she doesn’t even have a rear view mirror!). And that is the way she treats life in general.
You see, Em constantly puts other people’s needs above her own desires. She is flexible and content no matter what the circumstance, and I am challenged by her selflessness every day. Some mornings I find myself getting upset when my car’s bluetooth system doesn’t understand my commands or my heated seats take a little longer to warm up…but then I picture Em driving to work without a working radio and it reminds me that I can wait a little longer for my butt to be warm!
I am beyond blessed to call such an incredibly awesome woman my wife. And I know that someday she will be an incredible soccer mom who doesn’t mind chauffeuring around our kids…but hopefully it will be something a little nicer than a 1997 conversion van :)
