by Lynn Hartz
West Virginia, USA
My mother gave me her car a year before she died, and May 9, 2005, the day we settled her estate the car quit running. My 23-year-old daughter used my other, more reliable vehicle to get to and from college.
Then in August my daughter was driving on a familiar road, when a car came flying down the hill and hit her as she turned left. The accident totaled the other car. Fortunately, it only bruised her. It was beautiful weather, school was just about to begin again, yet now we had *no* car. I didn’t know what I was going to do.
Some friends of mine in an online chat group gathered some money so I could purchase a new car. It wasn’t much, but the care and concern of people I had never met face to face was wonderful.
Then my aunt called from North Carolina and I told her about the accident. She didn’t know the car my mom had given me had finally worn itself out. I said, “First I had two cars, then one, and now none!”
“We have three,” she told me, “so I will bring you one.” Before the week was over, she and my uncle drove to West Virginia with a 1984 Toyota van for us. “I couldn’t let this go to anyone else,” she said.
So we went to the Department of Motor Vehicles to register the car into my name. I saw Dan, a friend of mine from church. Though he’s retirement age with beautiful white hair, he still works full time. And, although he has three master’s degrees, his love is working on cars. He helps many people.
“What are you doing up here?” he asked.
“My aunt and uncle brought me a van from North Carolina and I’m
registering it.”
“I have a car for you,” he replied.
I was shocked. “You do? They just brought me one!”
“You need two,” he answered. “Your daughter has to get to and from school and work,” he said matter-of-factly. He went on to tell me that it needed a little work, but he’d let me know when it was finished.
A few weeks later Dan picked me up at home after work and we went to his house to get the car. It’s a 1987 Toyota Celica and the mileage is fantastic, over 30 miles per gallon! The van does almost as well.
All of these people know that “What goes around, comes around.” I have done much for many, and in my time of need, I was sent not one, but two car donors.
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