Mrs Williams

Dear Mrs Williams,

I know you think this is not important, in fact, a bit of a joke, but I want to let you know what you did to me. I want you to understand that your thoughtless actions had an impact on someone else's life, that you did something bad.

I know you thought you simply rammed an anonymous white van, and that it was just a thing.  Well, it wasn't.  It was Shaz.

Let me explain, properly, the background, from the start.

My husband, my soulmate, my wonderful, kind, strong, beloved husband was taken from me in 2005, quite suddenly and unexpectedly through a malignant grade 4 brain tumour.  When he died I was lost, broken, destroyed, adrift, no longer really me anymore.  And they gave me a life insurance payout.  How ridiculous does that seem, what is money in relation to the loss of not just his life but my planned life with him.  How can money even relate to such a thing, and what's it for?  I left it sat, untouched for years, it just didn't seem relevant to me.  In 2012, seven years on, I found myself starting to be in a better place, a glimpse of the possibilities of happiness, my head coming out from the clouds a little and my feet beginning to find their place as well as this unwanted new life began to start forming some tendrils of spring again.

So, knowing that Dave would have smiled at my actions I commissioned the sourcing and converting of a VW Transporter into a camper van.  It was custom built for me.  Little details and big details.  Customised.  For me.  The seats are a cheery blue and white leather look, and I love them. I love all the little bits and pieces of my camper van.  And I travelled in that van, to Scotland first off, then all over Europe we went in an extended trip while I took time out of real life and work and all that jazz.  I lived in her, like a tortoise traveling in her shell, that's how I was, moved for a bit then curled up safe and warm in the cocoon which the van became.  She was Shazza, my camper van.

I returned to real life eventually, travelling can't last forever if funds don't.  But the van played a huge part in my life from then.  Everytime I needed peace and quiet, she was the obvious refuge, heading off for a week or for a weekend, alone or with friends.  When I needed time to study and write essays for my Open University degree, I'd go away in Shaz, mix up walking or riding my bike by day then quietly, comfortably and in peace, I'd have a seat in Shaz and open up the books.

She represents so many things for me.  She's my dead husband's legacy.  She's my play thing.  She's my happy place.  She's part of how I go away with friends.  She's my only vehicle, my only way of carrying stuff which can't be walked or biked or trained or bussed.  She's Shaz, she's the way I find inner calm and a gateway to fun and adventure.

You took her away.  You admit that you have had a lot of crashes but you didn't stop to consider that maybe you're not fit to drive.  You said you had blacked out, couldn't remember.  You weren't fit to drive.  But you did drive.  You drove into Shaz, you took her away.  You.  You did that. Nobody else did that.  You drove down the middle of the bloody road, you didn't try to stay on your side, you didn't brake, you didn't steer, you didn't look.   Were you on the phone, reading a text perhaps?  You rammed her, and you wrote her off.  You seem to be proud of your bad driving record.  How many other people have you unthinkingly said "oh it was just a piece of metal" to.  You are not a thoughtful person.  We will not be friends.  You did this.