It wasn't always littered with chocolate snack pudding tops, Barbie doll clothes and colorful Skittles. Once it sat in the car dealership — new, shiny and green. The sticker price appealed to us even though owning a van, to me, did not. But Baby Number Three was on the way and a larger vehicle made sense.

We drove this 1995 Dodge Caravan home to our crowded garage. From there it took us on countless trips to the grocery store, the beach, the mountains and home from the hospital after Benjamin's birth.

Daniel liked riding in his car seat next to Baby Ben. He could not only make his brother laugh, but watch the traffic below. Once, in a particularly tiresome intersection I noted that there was a lot of traffic and as though on cue, both Daniel and his older sister Rachel flawlessly recited a poem from a book. The first lines spoke of being in a situation with noise and cars and the last line said, "...But way up high a balloon floats by, quiet as a breeze." Daniel was only three, and when he said "breeze" it sounded like "bwweeeze."

The green van is where I first noticed the bump on Daniel's neck. The green van took us to the hospital. It drove us to the beach after Daniel's first round of chemo. The middle seat was where clumps of his hair fell out as Rachel whispered, "Oh, Mommy, it is so sad."

And then one day in February, the green van had one less passenger. Every time I got in it, I would wonder where Daniel would be sitting, what he'd be wearing, and how he'd be interacting with his siblings, especially his newest sister, born three months after his death.

I purchased a bumper sticker that reads "Loved and Remembered, Our Son, Daniel Paul Wisler" and placed it on the right rear bumper. This way, I thought, the little boy who laughed and recited poems will always have his name on the dirty green family van. Once a stranger kindly asked me about Daniel after studying the sticker at a parking lot.

One afternoon after we'd placed a new floral arrangement on the marker and added a candle, Ben asked, "Does Daniel know that we do all of these things?" And it was then that from the van we watched a rainbow bending over the cemetery.

Although the van has had its share of mechanical work and I am sure that the local Tire King has gotten enough from my credit card to send at least two children to college, the vehicle still runs well. It sounds like a tank and does have nearly 110,000 miles. There was a time my husband asked if I'd like to trade it in for the newest Dodge Caravan model with double-sliding-side-doors but when I stroked our van's door with the etchings, he quit asking.

The van drives our family of five to the cemetery, known to us as Daniel's Place, as we place picnic blankets, a frisbee and a pinwheel on the seat where Daniel used to sit. From his grave we send balloons with attached messages into the summer sky every August 25 — the day Daniel was born.

Under the Expanded Sky

Educating Merna

Crying With My Ancestors

Opening Grief as a Gift

Living Life from the Graveyard

Surviving the Tinsel

Trees of the Ice Storm

Is There Laughter After Death?

Whatever Happened to the Old?

Out of My Comfort Zone

I Am Not Cheese

As The Sixth Year Approaches

Judging Pain?

Grief Meets the Answering Machine

Closets, Revisited

Unwinding with a Pen

There is Nothing Wrong with You!

Scared to Death of Dying and Denying Grief

The Night the Christmas Tree Fell

Baking Bereavement Bread

For the Love of Mothers

Bereaved Eyes

A Wealthy Life

The Power of Photographs

Fragrance of Marigolds

Up until two weeks ago, this faithful family tank had never been in an accident. But due to all the local highway construction, it was rear-ended by a small truck whose driver was probably wondering how he was going to get onto Interstate 40 by merging into quickly-moving traffic after adhering to a stop sign placed on the entrance ramp. All on a rainy afternoon.

"I always said this stopping and merging on this highway was an accident waiting to happen!" I cried to both the driver of the truck and the policeman. How could I fault the truck driver when even the policeman agreed that the Department of Transportation should not allow for such dangerous road ways.

But it was the best kind of accident, one where everyone involved gets to drive away, no one is hurt (my three — Rachel, Ben and Liz — were with me), and the damage is mild.

"At least Daniel's bumper sticker wasn't harmed," I said noting the dented trunk. "I just hope that when the shop fixes it they take good care of that sticker, too."

I don't know how much longer the old Dodge is going to run. I know that a wise shopper and investor would have traded it in years ago — before the 100,000 miles, before the accident, and during a season when we were more financially equipped to handle a new car payment. But these days, I've seldom let wisdom take over sentiment

Sometimes, when all is calm, which is rare, I can hear a whisper from somewhere in a seat behind me. "...But way up high a balloon floats by, quiet as a bwwweeeze."

Who would have known the comfort of a dirty green van?