The Forgotten

It wasn't worth fixing, our mechanic suggested. At a couple grand, we'd be better to invest in something to replace it.

Our 2003 Honda Odyssey had served its purpose. We needed something spacious for our family of four, with room to carry things that seemed to be needed for a young, active family.

Not our van but just like it.

It carried our bikes. It carried all of our kids makeup cases and costumes for when they were in competitive dance. It carried camping gear. It hauled large pieces of furniture. And it hauled us everywhere.

It seated seven people, which was great for when the kids wanted to go places with friends or when we wanted to take grandparents with us. When DW's mom required special care, we could easily get her in the van and have room for her wheelchair.

But as the vehicle got older, things started to fail on it. The automatic sliding doors stopped working. The rear wiper blade failed. Some electronics went awry.

Twice, in one month, there were two incidents where the Odyssey rear-ended someone. The first was cosmetic, with only scrapes placed on the bumper and no apparent damage to the struck vehicle. The second was more significant: the radiator was bent and pushed back, the front frame was weakened, and the engine sounded like it wasn't firing on all cylinders.

When we took it to our mechanic to assess, he gave us the bad news. The van could be fixed but it would be costly. And while our insurance might cover it, the van was already 11 years old (we had it for nine) and had other issues, plus making a claim could see our premium increase.

In his words, it wasn't worth the effort.

It was barely road worthy, so we decided to drive it to DW's father's house, which is closer to our mechanic than our house is. Her dad had a large driveway so he said we could store it there. At the time, he worked for a demolition company and said he'd get someone to tow it, and they'd pay us for scrap.

That was in the late fall of 2014.

Honestly, it was our responsibility but once we left the van at DW's old home, we let it sit there. We didn't want to move it until we found a replacement—that's when we acquired the Honda CR-V that we lost last December—and by then, the van was buried in snow.

In the spring of 2015, shortly after DW's mom died, her dad quit work, as his own health was deteriorating. We spent more time caring for him than thinking about the van. And when he required full-time care and we moved him into a nursing home, we all but forgot about the Odyssey.

Three years later, her father passed away. When he left, he designated two of his children as the executors of his estate. And because there are two of them, it has taken a long time to assess and execute the estate.

The house will be going up for sale, soon, but one of the first things we wanted to do was get rid of the van, once and for all. After all, it's been sitting at the side of his house for more than 11-and-a-half years—about two years longer than we had been driving it.

The responsibility for the removal was placed upon me last week. I did some searches and found a company that would take it, no questions asked. In the years since we last drove it, I had misplaced the registration but I had a set of keys, the VIN, and identification. The company arranged for a pickup bright and early on Monday morning.

In the meantime, I drove to the old house to see if the registration was stored in the glove box. I thought that might be something that I would have done when we backed the van into the driveway.

When I saw the van, it was as if nature had tried to reclaim the Odyssey. It was further back than I had remembered leaving it, but I vaguely remember backing it up to get it out of the way as much as possible. It was right against the bushes and just in front of the backyard shed.

The bushes were growing around the van. When I got close to it, I saw that vines were growing out of the front hood, some even making their way into a gap in a door and getting inside.

Over the years, we've hired someone to maintain the property, and it looked like a rider mower had collided with the side of the van at some point, leaving deep scrapes and dings that had since rusted over.

When I unlocked the passenger-side door, it took a bit of effort to pull the door open. Over the years, the rubber seals around the door seem to have stuck to the metal.

The stink was powerful. Rodents had found a way in and though I didn't see any, evidence was visible: there were droppings all over the interior.

The only thing that was in the glove box was the owner's manual. Because there were mouse droppings inside, I didn't want to fan through the manual to see if I had stuck the registration between pages.

The extraction was a two-step process. The flatbed operator had to pull the van out of the earth, as the wheels had sunk partially into the soft earth. And the vehicle had to come away from the bushes so that the operator could get hooks into the driver's side.

I'm sure the operator has had bigger challenges. Cars that had been in serious collisions, thrown off the road and into ditches.

Only one tire was completely flat. The other three were low on air but they supported the wheels.

The whole operation took less than half an hour. He took my ID, had me sign some papers, and that was it. I took one last look at the Odyssey, remembering the good times we've had in it. All of the travel. All of the adventures.

It looks so small on the flatbed.

It's funny to think how, in a way, it outlasted two vehicles that we had acquired after purchasing it, in 2005. It stuck around after we had said goodbye to the Ford Focus, which we bought two years before the last collision with the van. And it even stuck around longer than the CR-V that replaced it.

Both of those vehicles went to the wreckers before the Odyssey.

The Odyssey may have been forgotten for a time but the memories around it will endure.