My blue Nuigi

Thanksgiving Eve in 2007 was the day I bid an unexpected farewell to Nuigi.

Nuigi was my 15-year old Toyota that crashed in T-bone fashion with another Toyota car on a busy intersection three minutes from my workplace.  After the crash everything was a blur, but the Good Lord made it a point that I got home in one piece.

That morning started like any typical fall morning.  Snowflakes came overnight and I had to scrape the ice off my windshield.  Because the roads were covered with snow, I didn’t rush to get to the office.  When I got to that fatal intersection, I didn’t see the red light and Nuigi had barely crossed over when a white old Toyota hit my passenger side.  I was going straight to the next block, but the crash forced Nuigi to swerve rapidly and barely missed hitting the electric lamp at the corner.

Driving behind the white Toyota was a cop and he witnessed the accident.  According to him, I ran a red light.  For a driver who always stopped at yellow, that was totally out of character.  I instinctively knew that I dozed on the wheel before the moment of impact.  I wasn’t the type to risk my life, specially of others, on the whim of beating a red light.

The cop thought that I might have been seriously hurt.  He said he saw my upper body swing forcefully from the impact of the crash.  The paramedics came and asked if I needed to be treated or brought to the hospital.  At that moment, I was too stunned to feel anything.  I just knew that I was fine enough to get out of the car, walk to the driver of the white Toyota who was standing and smoking at the side of the road.  He said he was okay and that one-word confirmation made me feel alright too.

After the cop made his statement and issued me the ticket, I took care of getting Nuigi towed to the body shop.  During the trip I didn’t think that it was the last time I would be with Nuigi.  I felt hopeful that the necessary body work would be done and in perhaps a few weeks, we would be reunited.  At the shop the auto mechanic looked at Nuigi and confirmed my worst fear:  Nuigi was a total loss.  When I was told that the repair would cost a great deal more than what the insurance company would reimburse me, it was a no-brainer.  It was like having to pull life support from a terminally ill patient.  Nuigi and I had to part ways.  If I wasn’t in the stunned state that I was in then, I would have cried my heart out and felt extremely sad.  It all happened so fast that emotions seemed to desert me.

When I got home with all the items that were stored in Nuigi's trunk, I realized that I had a huge purple bruise on my right thigh, apparently caused by hitting the wheel during the crash.  It hurt for a while, but the bruise went away after a couple of weeks. 

That holiday weekend was the saddest Thanksgiving of my life.  I not only lost a dear, precious friend, I knew that it was the dawn of my public transit lifestyle.  At that time I couldn’t decide whether I should get a Nuigi replacement or not.  I still felt traumatized by the crash.

Now four years later, I believe that Nuigi left me for a reason.  It was God’s Will, plain and simple.  After I conceded to that truth, being car-less left me feeling appreciation for what I have… a healthy life that could have been lost if fate decreed that it was my time to go.  Right now, I’m very much alive and thankful for the good fortune of breathing life. 

I still miss my blue Toyota named Nuigi, and once in a while, give myself permission to reminisce our driving days together.  I have to admit that being driven, and no longer the driver, has given me ample time for the pursuit of joyful activities during my work commute.  For that reason alone, I see the positive from that 2007 Thanksgiving Eve accident.