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Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher
Wes, I also was watching and hoping she would pull through. I'm still sad for you and your family. I'm glad to see you posting her truck though. Was this a favorite truck of hers? What's the back story and are you restoring it to original or how she wanted it?
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Thank you guys It's a journey I hope none of you have to endure. The pain doesn't stop and neither do the tears I shed.
The back story to this memorial (Tribute) truck started years ago when I bought my first 72 short bed 4x4. It as it turned out would be Beth's favorite thing to drive. She was only 5'2" tall and because the truck was lifted she felt bigger or at least as big as everyone else driving down the road. She preferred to drive that over the new car we had gotten for her. She just loved that truck.
Well finances got tight as they often do when you are a small business and there came a time I needed to sell the truck to stay afloat. She was sad about the sale, but understood why it had to go. I told her I would get another some day.
Flash forward several years and by this time Beth had came down with a condition called mixed connective tissue disorder. That is an autoimmune disease that includes rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, fibro myalgia, Sjogren's disease and Raynaud's syndrome. The only way to fight those diseases is with an army of medications. Medications designed to knock her immune down so it wouldn't attack her own body. Medications that did not come without complications of their own. So she took even more medications to stop the side effects and those medications came with their host of problems. It just goes on and on. The net result was Beth suffered with a lot of pain for a lot of years and that wasn't the worst of it. She also as a result of taking all of those medications that suppressed her immune system came down with another condition called interstitial lung disease. Interstitial lung disease is another term for pulmonary fibrosis. A disease where her lungs turn fibrous and loose their elasticity, essentially causing her to die of asphyxiation and that was how she passed. There was a whole lot more to this story than this but I am trying to tell why I am building this truck and why I am so passionate about it.
Anyway years had past and I found another short bed 4x4 and bought it and brought it home. I told Beth that I finally had found one that was worth rebuilding and so here it is. I did a few things to it, not much but I wanted to make it presentable in my parking area. Mainly I washed it and took the hideous canopy off of it. Then someone came along and offered me more money than I could refuse to buy it from me. He told me that he had been hunting one for many years and every deal he found always fell apart and he really wanted mine bad. So I sold it to him.
The next day Ben (my son) told me I had hurt his mom's feelings and that she had claimed that truck as her own and looked forward to me restoring it for her. Needless to say I was crushed! There is one person in this world I absolutely not hurt it was my wife. I wouldn't because I loved her and I wouldn't because she was dealing with all the problems and pain her disease gave her.
So that put me on an immediate hunt for another one for her. That is this truck. So I discussed with her what I wanted to do to the truck and she told me what she wanted. So the process of restoration began. I told her I was going to make this truck really special for her. That she deserved nothing but the best. I had been rat holing parts for many years in anticipation for this build and the time had come.
I stripped the truck down to it's bare frame and taken it to the powder coater to have it powder coated. Then my problem happened. I wound up in the hospital having to have open heart surgery myself.
I was on ventilator for three days after that and Beth was the first person I saw when I woke up. She was holding my hand and told me that everything was going to be alright. She stayed buy my side for the entire time they would let her. Strengthening our bond immensely.
Shortly after that I got her frame from powder coating and started working on it. Just over a month later Beth became ill again. She was in and out of hospitals 3 times before they medevacked her to Oregon Health Science University Hospital where we spent the next three months of our lives trying to make her better. After a horrendous, painful 3 months Beth told me she wanted to be with God and her Dad. She had endured far too much pain and couldn't do it any longer. So I told her Doctors, and then held her in my arms so she wasn't alone while the nurses administered the medication so she wouldn't be anxious and would go to sleep. They lowered the settings on her ventilator and removed it from he neck and I held her until she passed taking the biggest part of my life with her.
After the funeral and after some time had passed I finally started coming back around and part of the reason I did was I wanted to honor her. The best way to do that was to build this truck now in her honor. A truck that is great enough to pay tribute to the love I had lost that loved me so much.
I had documented most all of her suffering on my Facebook page as a way for me to cope with what I was experiencing and what she was going through. As I did that something happened. Undenounced to me she had created quite a following. Many people were genuinely concerned about her life and came to love her also. So when I announced I was going to build a truck in her honor, a truck great enough to honor her life people started contacting me wanting to know how they could help.
Now some like Grant Bolt who owns Matchless Brewing have volunteered time and donated money to the build. Grant who stuck with me through all of this even wanted to brew a memorial beer for her.
I accept help however it comes to me. Not because I need it witch I do, but because it shows Beth what kind of impact her life made on many people and how she is genuinely missed by all.
I hope she is proud of what I am doing and what many others will be doing for her in the future. When the truck is done, I will keep it in the shop with a car cover over it. The only time it will be driven will be to drive it to her final resting place and visit her. This is for her, nothing else. Not for show, not to drive around, but only for her, so that's what I will use it for.
Sorry for the long post and I cried through making it, but there you have it. Why I am building a tribute truck. WES
Here's a couple pictures of what I did today. I bolted her Redhead steering gear on.