Adventures in a Stick Shift or Finding Out What It Isn't

I got to revisit how dependent I am on my automatic yesterday.  I love my automatic.  It's taken me nearly five years to say that.  I drove my grandparents to OHSU in Portland.  It's on a hill.  There was traffic, lots of traffic.  I didn't kill the car, us or anyone else but I sure wished I had the automatic!

Know what it feels like to find out what something isn't but still not know what it is?  That's what Grandma got to feel yesterday.  While everything the doctor had to say was encouraging, it didn't get at the root of her problem.  She's healthy, he expects her to live to 113, and the veins to her brain are great.  The chances of a stroke are low.  But none of this explained why she's dizzy.  "I feel defeated," she said at lunch.  I know what she meant but had no words to buoy her up.  

Should she feel defeated? That's open to debate.  People like to say things are what they are.  All things point to health.  Is that what she should focus on?  I don't know. I know in my life I hate it when I don't know the answer.  Why do things happen the way they do?  Are we supposed to be learning something from life? Or, are things what they are? Okay, so no great answers today.  

Only once did I forget I was driving their car and try to start it without pushing in the clutch...at REI.  Luckily, I had pulled forward into the next spot so there wasn't a car in front of me to hit.  It was what it was.