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By Ozy Anyanwu
The day I got my driver’s license, I instantly started dreaming of what my first car would be. I
was hoping for a Toyota Camry, maybe a Venza, a Honda Civic, or even perhaps a CRV. The day
my dad told me that the car I’d be driving was his ‘fabulous’ Red 2004 Honda Odyssey, I
genuinely remember my heart-stopping. I thought he was joking, but he handed me the key and
said, “Take care of her.” To give you some backstory, my dad bought this van brand new in 2012.
My older sister and I named it Victoria (no idea why), and that name has stuck ever since. To say
that I disliked the old van my dad asked me to drive to school is an understatement. The van
wasn’t in the best of shape. However, as annoying as this was, Victoria holds key memories for
me and my childhood. This one red van has seen me through every era of my life.
Victoria was the car that took me to school almost every morning. Since my mom worked
early most mornings, my dad would take me and my sisters to school in that van. The biggest
memory of Victoria was pulling into the school drop-off line while my dad blasted Nigerian
Christian music from cassette tapes. Those tapes are still in that car. I remember prying open the
door in the drop-off line while music in a language nobody knew poured out of the vehicle. I
would be so embarrassed for the rest of the day, and I insisted my dad drop us off farther away to
avoid that embarrassment. However, when I started driving that vehicle, I found myself
sometimes reaching for those tapes and playing those same Nigerian songs that I knew every
word to and looking back on those years of my life.
Victoria was the vehicle that drove my family and me 19 hours to Dallas, Texas, to see my two
aunts and cousins for my sixth birthday. When my sisters and mom fell asleep, my dad and I
talked the entire ride there and back. Though I don’t remember the specifics of our late-night
conversations, I know that I was silently joking with my dad so as not to wake up the rest of my
family, and that’s a core memory from the trip.
Victoria was the vehicle that took my family and my grandpa, Claudius Anyanwu, all
over Richmond when he visited for three months when I was 8. I remember when my dad drove
us all to Visionworks to buy him a pair of prescription glasses and later took him to Walmart for
shopping. I remember holding his hand inside King’s Buffet while I watched him eat American
food for the first time, and my parents videotaped it, as always. I insisted that he try the fried
rice, and he loved it. I remember crying in that same van when we took him to the airport to go
back to Nigeria, asking my parents a thousand times, “When is grandpa gonna come back?” That
was the last time I saw him before he passed away in 2015, and I will forever cherish the
moments we spent together.
Victoria was the vehicle that I first learned how to drive in. Throughout my junior year, I drove
that vehicle in circles around many a parking lot, learning how to brake and accelerate. It was
also the vehicle I failed my first driver's test and cried the rest of the way home. Victoria was the
vehicle I used when I finally passed the driver’s test. All those hours I spent learning to parallel
park with a van were finally worth it when I got that intermediate and was ready to hit the road.
At first, I was so embarrassed to drive this vehicle to school because what a 17-year-old drives a
red Honda Odyssey to school? And the looks I’d get in the parking lot were something else
entirely. I’d park it at the end of the school parking lot to ensure I was never seen in it. However,
whenever I sit in that vehicle and breathe in, I’m hit with memories of happiness, heartbreak,
love, loss, and everything in between. Victoria was the same van that made the 87-mile trip to
Louisville to drop me off in college, and though I’m surprised she made it that far without
breaking down on the road, it was an incredible feeling to step into a new era of my life with a
lifetime of memories to guide me into this new, exciting phase! Thank you, Victoria.
Ozy Anyanwu is a McConnell Scholar in the class of 2028. She is studying on a global studies and international affairs track and Spanish.