I remember moving into the house on Hickory Street. I was four, almost five and would be starting kindergarten soon. We had just returned from a trip through the Smoky Mountains to visit our cousins. I held my Smoky Mountain souvenir pencil case close as I walked into our new home.

Not long after we had settled in, we were introduced to a new member of the family – my father’s first “baby” – the MG. We had many things in common in those early days.

From the start, we both got our own rooms – mine was upstairs, the first bedroom on the left; hers was the garage. Neither of us had air conditioning, but at least I had heat.

For a while, the MG had to share her space with that trouble making Honda motorcycle. It didn’t last long though: the motorcycle plastered dad on the asphalt – and once was all it took. Dad went around on crutches for a few weeks and the MG once again had her room to herself.

I had my room to myself until Audrey came along later that year. I had pesky little brothers around all the time.

Perhaps the car cringed when our collection of Schwinns began to crowd her. She never mentioned it to us, but Dad was always telling us kids to be careful around her.  In fact, if we didn’t breathe around her, that would be best. Extracting your bike from the garage was like playing a game of Operation.

One time when Dad brought home his newly repainted 1962 black Chevy Impala, the motor still warm, three-year old Charlie Gendreau road our pedal powered hook-and-ladder fire truck alongside the car, the hooks leaving its mark on the driver’s side from stem to stern, as they say. My dad’s ability to stay composed has long been a marvel among the neighborhood.

He soon started keeping the MG under a tarp – if bubble wrap had been invented then, I’m sure he would have used that. Funny, we didn’t see that fire truck after the “Great Hook and Ladder Incident”.

The MG’s room was decorated with tools, workbench, and a pair of jacks to rest her weary chassis.

My room was decorated with a cat clock whose eyes and tail rocked back and forth with an eerie creak. It terrified me for months.

Back then, the MG was white. It must not have been running when she moved in because once Dad got the motor working, he just had to take it for a test run through the streets of Waukegan. Back then, the car was without seats. He couldn’t wait until he had them re-installed, so he sat on the floor boards, his head barely above the steering wheel.

Not long after that, he took her apart and hung her in pieces on the basement clotheslines. Methodically, he painted them fire engine red, guaranteeing her to always be a head-turner. A few times, beauty queens, politicians and grand marshals rode on her back during holiday parades.

I tried being a red head once– but that didn’t turn any heads.

Once I had my driver’s license and we attended a few Vintage Sports Car Club events at Road America, I became Dad’s navigator. Something we would do together. I even learned to drive stick with the MG – of course, being an English car, it was right hand drive. Coordinating my left hand with the dance of clutch and gas often resulted in Dad shouting over the wind – “Put! The! Clutch! In!”

He spent time with us and the car in equal measure for a while. Boy Scouts and other things that put a cramp in his MG time. As the family grew, he had less time to spend with her. She never complained – ever the model of a perfect child.

Dad never took her out unless it was a cloudless day. When those days happened, the wind would blow his hair back, his eyes protected by his aviators. Always there was sheer bliss on his face, just like his pure joy in holding each child, grandchild and great-grandchild for the very first time.

This was how Dad taught us to follow our passions and find the joy in life’s simplest and most beautiful things.

One thing that is recurring here is time.

Time wasn’t kind to Dad. An empty nest meant he had more time for his pride and joy. And while the MG never showed her age, my dad wasn’t so lucky. Carpal tunnel syndrome was the first to betray him. The tools that helped him earn a living and enabled him to delve into his passion for English sports cars were too heavy, the wrists weaker and his fingers less nimble.

Then Parkinson’s claimed its place in Dad’s body.  For the past year, he struggled to bounce back from a stroke which was only complicated tenfold with his Parkinson’s. Yet he never lost his sense of humor. And for those of us who knew him well, he told the corniest jokes. He came by that honestly – Grandpa Juppe did the same thing.

Our father is no longer held captive to an uncooperative body. He is free now to tinker with all the cars in Heaven.

Godspeed, Dad.