Si Si Nyunt-Goneconto is Communications Writer for Assumption HS 1977 website.

Cuckolded by the imagery of fairy tales read in my youth, in some hopelessly romantic valve in my heart, I envisioned my soul mate to be a knight gilded in glimmering armor ensconced on a prancing white horse.

Once upon a real life, I woke up and my soul mate found me, a marriage already shattered in the rocks and two children to care for. My prince rode not a prancing white horse but a rattling rusty chassis of green.

Born in 1972 into the prestigious Volvo family, she was avocado green dressed in a matching worn plaid interior, hand sewn I believe. Engineers had lovingly installed a hand choke on her dash to aid her breathing capacity and maintain the appropriate fuel air ratio needed to invigorate her during the cooler seasons.

Age, had left her tinged with autumn orange rust spots, a door that sometimes wouldn’t open, a heating system that blew cooler than one would need on a crisp winter night, and headlights that would intermittently flicker down to a soft candle glow. Nevertheless, she ferried my prince 300 miles every weekend for 9 months, sometimes through heavily snow clothed New Hampshire mountain roads. She was sturdy and loyal.

Sometimes her choke would sputter and spew for half an hour in below 0 temperatures. Stubbornly she would come through, not once did she ever cave in and let the seeping cold of the mountains reek their ravage on her tiny engine soul. She was a tough one, impervious to her sometimes-harsh environment.

Somewhere along the way, watching her, riding in her, and later enjoying her for all her foibles and character impairments, I learned that she had shifted my soul. I found myself laughing mirthfully about situations that once would have had me embarrassed and annoyed to the tips of my toes.

We, the family, still share many a tale with our numerous visitors about our "green machine." At dinner, when we have company the kids will often request, "Mom or Unc, please tell a "green machine" story," and we will. One of my personal favorites is dropping my son, Tim (aged 10 at the time) at a friend’s home.

The car is jam-packed with the family, Tim’s friend’s home is in an upscale neighborhood, Audis and Beemers abound. Our temperamental door is having some difficulty – the fastest way out for Tim is through the window. As I diligently stuff and shove my child out the window that only rolls halfway down, the mother makes an appearance. As Tim bounces out of the window, I smile sweetly and say, "Oh kids, they are always looking for adventurous ways to exit." She smiles with uncertainty and we drive away, in a puff of laughter with tear soaked cheeks.

The kids’ favorite tale is how the "green machine" always needed a running start to get up a hill. On their way home from the MD’s office, the kids remember being in her as she slinked slowly up the hill, lost momentum and slid all the way down to the bottom. They turned around, drove back a little further to get a running start and along with them cheering and yelling you can do it ala the little engine that could, she sprung free and rose to the occasion once again.

There are many other "green machine" tales, the piercing scream, the day she ran out of gas, the recreational opportunities she provided the children, etc. But the day she came to a permanent rest is the one that I will leave you with.

It was Christmas Day, my prince I had spent the day in Rhode Island with his family. Of course, popular suppertime entertainment always included a verbal slideshow of the latest "green machine" stories.

It was close to midnight as we entered our hometown. The streets were blanketed with snow, the trees were draped with snow icicles, and the temperature was chilling. Under my wool blanket, I gazed at the sights; suddenly we lunged forward and jiggled a little. I looked up and said, "This really isn’t funny, honey, its too cold and way too late!" Silence was my answer. We were about a mile away from home. We slid along, a couple more chugs and lugs here and there. We were almost home – she slowly slid up the hilly icy driveway. She halted at the tip of the garage door and belched out this cacophony of grating sounds – then nothing – but the stillness of a snowy night.

She lay in the driveway till the spring. One day it was decided, the truck needed to come and take her away. I wasn’t home. I was told that my prince, took out her key, turned the engine after months of silence, and she purred gently, then sputtered out. With tears sitting in ducts, he and the children, hand in hand, watched her being carted away. It was an end of an era.

She comes to me sometimes in my dreams and I always wake up smiling. She taught me that beauty is fun deep, impressions are not paramount, and that loyalty and bravery are vital to the sustenance of our souls. I, also, with deeper clarity remembered, "that what is essential is invisible to the eye, it is only with the heart that one can truly see." It was now not enough just to know it. It needed to be branded in our hearts and souls and practiced in our daily lives.

Inanimate to the rest of the world she may have seemed – this avocado green, rust blemished machine, animated many a rudimentary routine.

And yes, fairy tales do come true, sometimes princes just happen to come riding in on chariots of green.