how do you grieve a car?

do you remember the first car you ever bought?

for me, it was a Wagon R.

and honestly? I never liked the way it looked. It was boxy, stiff, kind of like it was trying to be a car but didn’t quite make the cut. It looked more like a mini truck or a refrigerator on wheels. sometimes, I’d look at it parked next to sleeker cars and think, God, why do you look like that? It had a similar structure to the Nano, just… taller. bulkier. unapologetically awkward.

but that was the thing, it never tried to impress anyone. it was just there. always. like a background character that somehow knew every line of your story.

It was our first car. 

the first key that turned and unlocked a hundred small freedoms.

it was the car my mom learned to drive in. I still remember her gripping the steering wheel like she was holding onto the edge of a cliff. terrified, but determined. And when she finally got comfortable, it was like watching her become someone new. someone confident. unstoppable.

that car gave us the ability to go.

to just pick up and visit our grandparents..

to spend sunday afternoons chasing good food and better company.

it opened up a world that had always been right there but slightly out of reach.

it stitched our family closer in ways that seem small now, but back then? it meant everything.

then came the XUV.

Big. Stylish. Sleek.

The kind of car that made people turn their heads and nod with approval.

And suddenly everyone had something to say, how great it was, how much better it looked. It became the car we wanted to be seen in..

And slowly, the Wagon R faded into the background. The car that carried our chaos. our half-eaten ice creams. our grocery spills. our fights and silences.

forgotten.

until, quietly, without much fuss, we sold it in 2022.

i didn’t know how to feel. how do you grieve a car? something so mechanical, so practical… but also so personal?

it felt like someone tugged at a string I didn’t know was there, tied deep inside me, and it just hurt. Not in a loud way. Not in a way I could cry about. But the ache was real.

maybe I’m just sentimental. or maybe… cars, homes, toys, they carry more than we give them credit for. they hold our stories.

but then I think about my grandfather and his first car, a Maruti 800. He used it for nearly 20 years. That car had a personality of its own. It would break down in the middle of the road, sometimes start late like a grumpy old man, but he never thought of selling it. not even once.

And when the day finally came, the day someone else drove it away, I remember my grandmother standing there with tears in her eyes. It felt like they were losing a child. And my grandfather stood still, lips pressed, his face unreadable. But i knew. i knew. something was breaking inside him.

That car had carried them through years of joy, pain, and ordinary moments. It had seen their lives unfold.

It’s strange, isn’t it?

how you can grieve over things.

I still smile when I see a red Wagon R. my heart does this weird skip. like it recognizes something. someone. like seeing an old friend across a crowded street, both of you older now, changed, but still tied together by a time that only you remember.

And that’s the thing. you don’t always get a warning before the last time.

no one tells you when it’s the last time you’ll hug your favourite doll.

the last time you’ll twirl in your beloved pink dress.

the last time you’ll wear those plastic bead necklaces like they were fine diamonds.

the last time you’ll sit in the backseat of a car that carried your whole childhood.

no one tells you.

no bells ring. no sign appears. you just move on. and one day, you realize, oh. that was it.

and by then, it’s already memory.

if I had known, I think I would have held on tighter.

maybe said thank you out loud.

maybe cried a little more.

maybe sat with it longer, soaked it all in before it slipped away.

but I didn’t.

and now, I just carry it quietly.

like how we all carry little griefs. the ones that don’t make it into eulogies or goodbye notes. the ones for things, silly things, some would say.

they’re not silly.

because they held us. they saw us. they were there.

but that’s life, isn’t it? we don’t always get to say goodbye.

we only realize something was precious after it’s already behind us. because somewhere, buried in the smell of old car seats, in the sticky buttons on the stereo, in the soft click of seatbelts…is my childhood.

that’s the truth about grief, It doesn’t end. It just softens. folds itself into your smile when you pass a red Wagon R, or an old Maruti, or the smell of plastic bead necklaces. 

And you carry it.

quietly.

lovingly.

because goodbye never really came.

you just moved forward.

and left a little piece of yourself behind.