Thankful.

As I write this, I am sitting in my garage, the world a dull hum thanks to the whine of the air compressor as we await enough air to blow off the intake manifold which will soon find its way atop a 318 out of a 1986 Dodge Ram D150 100 Custom. The engine, which has been freshly primed, sits on a stand just feet away from me. It's immaculately clean and the fresh black paint on the oil pan is glistening. It's magical as just a short while ago, this was nothing but a pile of gunked up parts soaking in carburetor cleaner. 

This simple small block, that will power a simple truck is a godsend. I say that with a full understanding of the word. You see, it came to me in a miraculous way just about two years ago. The second vehicle in what is now called my "foster fleet," the D150 is a restoration project for a country singer/songwriter who once parked his tour bus half a mile from my house just a few short years after I professed to my pre-deceased mother that I wanted to marry him some day and have his babies. He gave me (temporary) babies alright...three of them and they all have four wheels. I learned quickly that sometimes people enter your life for reasons far from what you envisioned. I will walk away from my experiences with him without a wedding band (as I had joked about with my mom) but with something far more important. I will walk away from my experiences with him cherishing the memory of rebuilding two engines along side of my dad. 

This isn't the first engine I tore down and rebuilt with my dad, a seasoned engine machinist. But they are the first two we did after my moms passing. The rebuild of my Charger engine was done before my mom died and though I remember it vividly, some of the sentiment was overpowered by the grief of losing her as she passed on the morning of the day that we had planned to fire that Dodge up for the first time. 

As the oldest of three daughters, when my mom passed my role quickly turned from that of the spoiled first born to the stand in female figure in the lives of my sisters. I packed lunches, paid bills, and made sure dinner was made. I lost a lot of the characteristics that a daughter has. One place where I could always relish in the feeling of being a daughter was in the garage working with my dad. 

Tearing down an engine and then putting it together is a task my dad completes with ease. Watching him work is like watching someone in their natural habitat. When I admire my dads grace, interrupted only to curse a lost tool, as he taps in cam bearings or deglazes the cylinder walls...it's as if I am watching poetry in motion. It's as if I am watching art. It's magical and I'm mesmerized. As we prime the engine and wait for that first little squirt of motor oil, it's as if I want climb a tall mountain and shout to the world how proud I am to have the dad I do. During our grieving process, there had been many times that I wanted to shout the opposite. Yet, every time we find our way to the garage and I learn something new about engine machining or rebuilding, I become that eight year old version of myself who stood by the tire of my dads 1985 Ram, handing him tools as he put air conditioning in his truck. I will never forget those memories. Hot summer nights, working against the shadows of the sinking sun, looking up at my dad who was draped over the engine bay. My dad could have been the president and I wouldn't have been prouder. I will always be thankful for this project truck to make me feel that again...even at age twenty six. 

So, with a refreshed sense of "daughterhood", I feel validated in stating that I wouldn't trade my hard working dad for the world. Not for a doctor dad, not for a lawyer dad, not for a billionaire dad... Because none of those dads could have provided me with the foundation in which I've laid my greatest passion- Mopar. I'm not sure what would have come of me had I never been to a car show, or never watched my dad change oil, or never rode shot gun in his Chrysler 300 as a child. You know, once someone dies you tend to veil them in a heavenly light and hold them responsible for all that you are worth, at least I did/do that with my momma. But one thing that I can never, ever deny is that my love for Mopar, my passion to learn all that I can about the mechanics that drive our street machines, my innate need to save rusted up old muscle cars...that all comes from my dad. 

We've had hardships, we've disagreed, we even both lost our way a time or two...but when we're in that garage twirling wrenches, all is right in the world. I am the proud daughter of a middle class engine machinist, I wouldn't trade that for the world. And as for my foster fleet of Mopars, when this one is complete, and it heads south to where it belongs, the four carat solitaire round diamond ring with a skinny diamond-encrusted band that I showed my

Momma photos of as I day dreamed up a wedding wouldn't be worth a fraction of the fortune that this engine (still waiting for its manifold, because I got caught up writing) has brought into my life in the form of love, pride, and happiness.