The Alfa

Day 34: 21st May, 2019

When I woke up this morning, I saw that there was a voice mail on my phone from the car dealership where Zach worked and they had said the wheels for our Alfa were in. The reason for the new wheels was entirely my fault! I was driving to Zach’s last race at Donnington, it was the weekend right before his accident and I clipped a curb and ruined two of the wheels. Zach looked at it when I got there and said “It’s okay mum, we can get them fixed” but then I spoke to Martin and told him how bad I felt and he said, “Well Zach said they are screwed!” Zach would never tell me anything to upset me, especially as it was my fault. So I called the dealership back to book in a service visit and the instant the guy picked up the phone, the car alarm went off right outside! Nothing was around the car, it was parked in our drive. I was so glad Zach knew about it and was letting me know. Later on today, we went to a camping store to look at pans for the van. We asked Zach if he liked them and just as we said that, we heard a cling behind us on the wall but as we turned around, no one was there but we could see that one of the pans had moved and made the clinking sound! We then left that store and went to another camping store to look at more gear. As we were looking at more pans, we found some collapsible ones and asked Zach what he thought and immediately my phone dinged. Just to be clear, there were no messages or anything that would have made it ding this time. He has started doing this with both mine and Martin’s phones. The instant we ask him a question or talk to him, the phone dings. Sometimes there is a message and sometimes there is not but in this instance there were no messages. It’s so much about timing now and we are learning every day new ways to communicate with Zach by him showing us he is still here, we just have to be open to knowing it is him. On our way home, we went to get some fries at McDonalds and I said to Martin I would just eat them in the car. Now, there is absolutely no way that Zach would ever eat or drink anything in his car, he is adamant about that. So, of course, I dropped a fry down the side of the seat and when I moved the seat back to try to find this missing fry, the damn parking sensor went off and wouldn’t stop! It stayed on until I got the fry out and there was no one or anything around the car to cause it to go off! To make it shut off we had to reverse the car backwards so that it would stop. We both laughed and promised Zach, well I promised Zach, Martin would never eat in the car and did say earlier to me that Zach wouldn’t approve of me eating fries in his car, so I promised I would never eat or drink in his car again! When we got home, Martin walked into the front room where we all sat and watched TV. As he turned his laptop on, the TV came on! The remote was no where near Martin and you can’t turn it on without it, well obviously Zach can! A few minutes later, Martin had decided to go to the store for a couple of things and I was in the bathroom. As I stood there, I looked at my shoes and heard the word “Filthy, just like the car mum.” So I said okay Zach we will wash your car today. Martin had just got home and as he walked in the house he said, “hey I am going to wash the car I heard Zach say, dad the car is filthy and it needs washing.” I was telling him that I heard the same thing and he said it had to have happened at the same time because he was literally gone less than 5 minutes. So we washed the car…..together, all three of us.