Sorry in advance for anyone I might have scared, having thought this was about Lilly. Thankfully no, and if it had been believe me, you guys would be the first to know, and I'd like to think I'd die first before she ever wound up in a place like this..

It is partly about Lilly though I suppose. You see for the past couple.. er.. months.. her drivers side door has been broken off. It's just plastic so it just happened do to age, and I wasn't even the one who delivered the breaking blow. Anyway point is it's been broken and that means I have to open it from inside to get in. I'm pretty hard to annoy though so that's why I've been fine with it being broken for so long.

Anyway I was off today with nothing to do, getting cabin fever being inside, so I decided to go to Pick and Pull to find Lilly a 'new' door handle. You see, brand new they're outrageous like 70 bucks or something. It was a fittingly dreary grey day for doing such a thing I might add.

Anyway after about 30 minutes going through the import section because I can't understand their damn system for showing where the cars are. I finally found this girl at the very last bunch of cars. There were supposed to be like 3 Accents, and thankfully the only other one I saw which WAS Lilly's actual model.. thankfully had it's face gone.. I don't know how I could handle seeing Lilly's face in such a place.. but I recognized those eyes...

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Anyway, I put this here in reverence to this Accent who gave my girl her new door handle. Being there with her in the yard got to me more then I expected it to. Before I did anything to her I decided to take this picture of her out of respect. I closed her doors, put her hood down, and wiped the soot and rain from her eye, letting her have some dignity and not be seen like an open picked corpse for her final photo.

I spent about an hour trying to get the handle off, it was actually pretty straight forward and being able to practice on her means I can do it easier on Lilly.

I talked to her a little, as I sat there on her driver-side rocker taking her door apart. I told her how sorry I was that her owner was so cruel to her, she hadn't even been in an accident and is a year younger then Lilly. I told her about Lilly, how much she means to me and how in a way she'll live on through her. After taking the picture I held her face to my stomach and I hugged her.

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I noticed she still had her key in the ignition, but it refused to turn or come out. Looking in her glove box all she had was a single car key. I decided to take it with me, I almost felt like she wanted me to have it while she would keep the other... I dunno.

After I was finished I put her door back together, it didn't feel right leaving her taken apart. I then held her cheek one last time. It felt so helpless. There was nothing I could do to save her, and what can you possibly say to something staring at you on it's way to it's death? Even just saying goodbye seems cruel. The only thing I could think to say to her was "part of you will live on, I promise."

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On the way back I think Lilly could tell I was saddened by the experience, being quite the ride home when she'd been gity and flashy the way there. In fact it wasn't until about 20 minutes into the drive when I finally softly sang out the last part of a particularly catchy chorus that her dashboard illuminated to life, feeling as if she was waiting for me to say something. She then occasionally flickered and flashed afterwords and while in a drive-thru I finally told her about the Hyundai I met in the yard and I showed her this picture on my phone so she could see who donated her part to her, her lights fluttered. It didn't help the sad atmosphere either that every flipping song that played on Pandora the whole ride home was a sad song, from "You Were Mine" to "Whiskey Lullaby"

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Thank you little Accent, your life is tragically cut short. But I hope that I was able to at least give you a sliver of comfort. It still gets to me, thinking of myself being the first and last person who'll ever talk to you. But you will live on in memory, every time I open the driver door with that handle, the same handle your owner touched to take you on a drive, you'll be remembered, and a part of you will go along on all our future drives with us as well.