Editor’s note: The IJ is reprinting some of the late Beth Ashley’s columns. This is from 2017.

Our new red car is in the shop this week, getting the front bumper and one fender repaired.

Just thinking about it makes me angry.

While we were attending the San Francisco Ballet last week, someone hit our parked car and did $2,000 worth of damage.

Accidents happen, of course, but that doesn’t excuse lousy behavior. Whoever hit our car did not leave us a note accepting blame. What a creep.

I remember once when I scraped someone’s car in a grocery store parking lot, I clenched my teeth and left a note with my phone number. And that was in the days when I was a jobless widow with five kids to raise. I was not always perfect, of course, but I kept trying to be.

How could someone bang into our car, leaving part of the bumper and fender 2 feet in the roadway, and just sneak away?

I hope you’re reading this so you know the extent of my contempt.

Sometimes life calls upon us to rise above our guilt or our petty concerns and just do the right thing.

I remember that my heart went out to the poor guy who rammed my car when I was turning right off Sir Francis Drake Boulevard a few years ago. He didn’t mean to hit me. His insurance didn’t cover the repairs. Both of us felt bad. But we both suffered minimally.

The damage to our car is just one of many problems we’ve been facing lately.

During the recent rainstorms, our garage and downstairs apartment have been flooded with an inch of water. We had been fixing up the apartment to accommodate someone to live there and take care of us as we age. And we are aging fast.

Somehow Rowland keeps working on solutions. Nothing seems to faze him. I, on the other hand, tend to yowl in despair. What? One more discouragement?

We will live through this one, too, thanks to Rowland’s positive spirit.

In any lifetime, there are many dark moments. At age 90, you’d think I could sail through anything and stay calm. I have stopped expecting a life of smooth sailing. We all get our share of ups and downs.

Fact is, I think I’ve had a blessed life: loving parents, great sisters and princely brother, three husbands, five sons, scholarship to Stanford, travel all over the world, a long career at the Independent Journal and a raft of wonderful friends. Who could ask for anything more?

The downs in my life include a lousy first marriage and the death of my No. 4 son when he was only 56. At the moment, they include a damaged car and a flooded downstairs apartment

Now that I’m 90, I’m losing loved ones in wholesale fashion. All but one of my good friends from Stanford are gone, and the one who remains is seriously ill. These losses are expected, of course, but I don’t have to like them.

To keep a positive attitude, I have to remember all the good things life has brought me.

Right, right.

But life would be easier if people around me lived up to their obligations.

What’s so hard about acknowledging that you smashed someone else’s car by mistake? That’s what insurance is for!

There I go, expecting others to be perfect.

The next time I’m tempted to fudge on my responsibilities, I will try to think back on the person in the parking garage. And maybe I’ll find my best self.