For ten years, I drove the same car.

I didn’t realize it had been that long until recently. Time naturally moved, and so did we.

She wasn’t perfect, a few dings here and there. The headlights weren’t as sharp as they used to be. The A/C took a little longer to settle in. But she never broke down, left me stranded, or refused to go where I needed to be.

She devotedly… showed up. Every day.

I’m not a car person. I don’t really need anything flashy. I need comfortable. Reliable. Smooth. I like to sit a little higher when I drive. She gave me all of that with very little demand in return. She simply wanted the basics.

At one point I told Hubby I wanted to invest in her, to get the dings out, have her fully detailed. “It would be like new,” I said. He looked at it differently, and thought the cost might be more than she was worth. Ouch.

Then the engine light came on.

It didn’t stay on. Came and went – actually was on far less than it was out. I told myself it was something small, a faulty fuse or a short. Nothing serious.

But to him it was enough. One evening, Hubby sat me down and said, “It’s time.” A few days later we went out “only to look.”

Four hours later, I was driving home in something new. Beautiful. Smooth. Comfortable in an elevated way. Advanced. Impressive. Everything you expect an upgrade to be.

When we got home, Hubby parked my old car – my ten-year companion – in the driveway, exposed, and making space in the garage for the replacement to live – covered and protected from the elements. That’s the moment when her name came to me:

Etta Mae.

I looked at her differently in that moment. Not as a car, but as something that had quietly supported me for a decade. Etta Mae got me where I needed to go. Day after day. Year after year. Without complaint.

And I had replaced her.

I felt it immediately, an unexpected pull of guilt. Like I had been disloyal to something that had never failed me.

A couple of days later, I ran an errand in the new car. When I came back, Etta Mae was gone. The dealership had picked her up. No goodbye. No last drive. Gone.

I went into my office and cried.

It surprised me, how deeply I felt the loss of something that, by all practical measures, had simply reached the end of its time.

Etta May didn’t fail me. She didn’t force my hand. But she got replaced. And maybe that’s why it felt the way it did.

What have you held onto simply because it never let you down?