Well, I didn't want to lay out a long sad sob story here but I feel I owe it to a special someone to tell the complete story.
After driving a beat up 1993 Dakota for a couple years I was able to get a new truck in late November 2000. I really liked the 93 so I knew I was getting a new Dakota, no question about it. I headed on down to the local Dodge dealership and the first truck that caught my eye was a new black club cab Dakota R/T. I took it for a test drive and fell in love. Until i ran the numbers and realized the payments and insurance premiums would be more than I could handle at the time. So I did the responsible thing and bought a boring, dark blue V6 SLT club cab. I liked it and I rocked that thing for 16 years. But I had been bitten by the bug and would always want an R/T.
My sister Patty loved my new truck and really wanted one also. I took her to the dealership and of course we had to drive an R/T....and like me, loved it. She was a tomboy and liked cars and mechanical things like I did but same as me, she needed to do the smart thing and stay within her budget. So we shopped around and found her a nice deal on a used red 99 club cab V6 sport in like new condition. She lover her little "red sexy truck" as she called it and drove the wheels off it for 10 years. But we'd always say that one day we'd each get a R/T and make them badass. She talked about it a lot, she wanted an R/T more than I did I think. She never did grow out of it.
You know "one day", it's always "one day" or "soon" or "sometime" but life gets in the way.
Get married, buy a house, have a kid and before you know it 12 or 13 years have slipped away.
And that brings me to the summer of 2014 when Patty was diagnosed with Lymphoma. She fought hard for a year but things weren't going well and was told in August 2015 that her only hope was a bone marrow transplant and she needed it fast.
I, along with the rest of our family and friends got tested for comparability and against overwhelming odds I was a perfect 10 for 10 match. I underwent my part of the bone marrow donation in mid September. I would later find out the medicines they gave me and maybe the stress of everything set off chronic Atrial Fibrillation of my heart. I didn't know it at the time but my heart had started spazing out and swelling.
Things were looking good for Patty for a few weeks, then then cancer came back with a vengeance and she died on October 26th 2015. She was 35 years old.
At her funeral I collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. It was discovered that my heart was pumping at less than 20% capacity. I nearly died, spent a few weeks in a hospital bed thinking about Patty and everything she never got to do.
For some reason I kept thing about how much she wanted a "badass Dakota R/T" and I resolved to find one if I made it out of the hospital.
I could hear Patty telling me ,"no more of this "one day" bullshit talk, get one now". Took me few months to recover and find a good truck but I got my 03 about a year ago. My wife thinks I'm going thru a midlife crisis but i don't care. I'm having fun and every time I drive it I feel like a kid again.
And since Patty was a huge fan of TOP GUN, the greatest movie in cinematic history, she always said she'd name her truck Maverick.
Hence my avatar pic and goofy tag line.
I even had a custom decal made, I hope she likes it.
Maverick 1.jpg
I love you sis.