Danny Bell (DB) and Sydia Bell (SB)

DB: I used to take your mother for driving practice.

SB: Mhm, because she did not know how to drive [Laughs].

DB: And I remember one day, we was in this park and your mother had said to me, ‘I’m nervous. Y’all get out the car.’

SB: What car was this?

DB: Oh that was my black Maxima.

SB: Talk about it.

DB: Oh Man. 

SB:  [Laughs] 

DB: That was like my love child. 

SB: Hello! Was it paid off too?

DB: It was paid off. 

DB/SB: [Laughs]

SB: All right, so she’s driving and to my recollection she was doing a really good job. 

DB: She was.

DB: Until I told her, ‘I want you to park the car.’ I stood in front of the car to guide her, and I kept pulling my hands towards me as a, ‘Come on, come on.’ And for some reason, she stepped on the gas and the car flew. I had to jump out of the way, and the car went over the embankment into the water, flipped upside down. 

SB: And me, and you, and the dog.

DB: The dog.

SB: Roxanna.

DB: Yeah.

SB: Looking down.

DB: I could not believe this happened. 

SB: What just happened?

DB: I ran down the hill and I went into the water and I couldn’t see nothing. 

SB: Mmhmm.

DB: But I knew she was in there.

SB: And I remember these two women came up and they called 911 and stuff. Do you remember that? 

DB: I remember the ambulance and the police.

SB: And I want to say even a helicopter …

DB: Yeah.

DB: The feeling was, it’s too late. She’s gone. Until I pushed her up to the top of the car, they thought she was dead.

SB: I’m left with this memory of my Dad coming out of the water, like, literally holding my Mom. And saving her against all odds.

DB: Mmhmm. 

SB: That moment was love embodied to me.

But what I also remember is you going, ‘Oh, I saved her but Lord, my car.’ [Laughs] My car!

DB: Yeah. I had just shined my car up, it was- it was beautiful.

DB/SB: [Laughs]

DB: And she said, ‘I ain’t never going to touch a car again.’ Until this day, she just sits in the passenger seat and complains about, ‘Turn over there, slow down.’

SB: Truth, truth, truth. [Laughs]

DB: Everything. [Laughs]

SB: That’s a Bell family story. 

DB: Yes it is.