My Jetta is dead.

I didn’t find out until today, although in all honesty I’m not sure I could have admitted this until I heard it for real.

Jetta, my 2003 Volkswagen Mark IV Jetta GLS, is dead. She was killed on Wednesday night by a Hope College student who didn’t check her blind spot before changing lanes, and hit my car on the passenger door, bounced slightly, and then hit me again with her SUV between the wheel well and the front passenger side wheel. Suspension was wrecked, tire was flattened, I lost a ton of parts in the street behind me, and the front passenger side wheel was left pointed about 30 degrees right, which is quite the accomplishment, since I was pointing the car straight ahead. I’m not sure if the axle was cracked, or snapped, or if i just broke a few tie rod ends. To be honest, I’ve only listened to enough Car Talk over the years to be able to suggest those as possible causes of death.

Jetta is 11 years old this year. Fixing her would have cost $6,000. I’ve already put her in a ditch once after hitting some black ice. An odd issue with the transmission means that the speedometer isn’t accurate on the highway, and cruise control doesn’t work. But she has less than 95,000 miles on her. The sticker for the next oil change is sitting in a cupholder in the center console. She was just washed this last weekend.

The girl who hit my car with her SUV was cited for an improper lane change, and drove away from the accident. She killed my car, and she drove away.

I know it sounds overly emotional to be this broken up over a car. Jetta, though, was my first car. I went car shopping, and the fourth car I test drove was her. Leather (heated) seats, sunroof, black interior, black exterior, she was everything I wanted in a car. She was off-lease, in very good condition, and manifested my desire to feel free. She never went beyond the state line, but since I bought her in July 2007, I’ve put almost 60,000 miles on her.

The best analogy I can think of is this: Jetta was my Millennium Falcon. She was fast enough (in her later years, she could get from Holland to Ann Arbor in less than 150 miles), and all I was really missing was a Chewie. Then, out of the blue, a blind Ewok in a TIE Fighter hit her and killed her. It’s about that implausible. And it sucks.