Tiny's Tantalizing Text

This post is partially inspired by Billy's post about his dad.

Back in 2001 when my sister passed away, she was living in Wichita, KS, and me and Dad lived here in Western Iowa. The day she passed, I was on my way down to visit her, and bringing our Grandmother along since Brenda was recovering from several surgeries and we were going to help out. I won't bore you with details of this trip because they're irrelevant to the story I'm trying to tell. Well, thinking back, you do need a little detail. She went in to the hospital on July Second, which happens to be 2 days before my birthday, and that summer was my first being affiliated with our local Fire Department.

The week following her funeral, Dad, his girlfried, another family friend, and I, went to Wichita to move all of Brenda's stuff back home, and to attend a memorial service that her former employer/co-workers were holding. We arrived in Wichita on Tuesday night and picked up the rental truck before settling in at the hotel. On Wednesday, we were going to load the truck with a bunch of help from Brenda's former co-workers, only Dad and I had to go over to the law firm where she had worked to take care of the loose strings and estate crap. We got done at the firm about noon and decided to do lunch with Dad's girlfriend and the other friend we had along before getting into the job at hand. After lunch, Dad brought Brenda's car out of the ramp it was parked in and told me to clean out the trunk. Brenda loved stuffed animals and had probably close to 200 in her collection, but when I was cleaning out her trunk, I found 1 lone stuffed animal, and it happened to be a dalmation wearing a fire helmet. Needless to say, that little fella rode home in the vehicle I drove (Dad's pickup, he drove the truck, his girlfriend drove her car, and the other friend drove Brenda's car). There was only room for the driver in each vehicle, as I had luggage on the passenger seat (that's what the dog sat on), Dad had our 2 newest kitties in a cage on the passenger seat of his vehicle, and the other 2 vehicles just had stuff on them. Every couple of miles, I would look over at my new friend, and each time I looked, he had turned a little ways around. It was almost like Brenda was riding along and turning the dog just to let me know she was there.

He's still riding with me, but he doesn't have quite the view of the road ahead that he enjoyed while sitting on the dash. I took him off of there so his bright red helmet wouldn't fade after so long of being in the bright sunlight.