This trip couldn't come at a better time. This trip couldn't come at a worse time. Well, which one is it? Honestly it is both. I will be gone during some very important family events. I will be gone for the primary election, and I'm leaving too early to be able to vote by mail. But the last 5 months or so have been rough and I'm looking forward to getting away. Once I'm on my way I will shed any regrets for what I'll miss and focus on having a good time.
Part 1 of this trip will be with my dear friend Marie. This is our 2nd European adventure together. Some strange things happened on our trip in 2011. If there is a recurrence of these things, it might be our last trip together. 😉
Tomorrow we depart for Italy. We will spend three weeks there. Our destinations are Venice, Verona, Siena, an Agriturismo east of Florence and Lake Como. We will spend our last night in Milan so we can easily get to the airport in the morning. Marie will go home and I will fly to Prague. Jim will be waiting for me there.
After Lisa passed away in December my mother's passport was discovered. I didn't even know she had a passport. When it was given to me, I cried. That may seem like a strange reaction. I cried for missing her, and I cried for her unfulfilled dreams.
She was a workaholic. Some people work to live, but she lived to work. She was very dedicated to her job. She was not able to travel much between having 5 kids and working. In her 30 years of marriage to my dad I think the only time she left California (besides our one and only family vacation to Ensenada) was a trip they took to Hawaii when brother Dave lived on the Big Island. Her big dream was to go to China. They were talking about finally being able to go. But then the company she worked for was going out of business. The trip would have to wait until she did what she could to close things down. This was in 1984. My mother was a healthy 58 year old. She didn't have any medical problems at all. So she thought. Around April or May of that year the business was winding down. She started experiencing back pain. The doctor told her she had osteoporosis. It got worse very quickly. By early July we got the terrible news. She had terminal and inoperable lung cancer. The back pain was because it had already spread to her bones. She was bedridden and in excruciating pain. How could this be? Just a few months ago she was fine. Although the doctors said she had 9-18 months to live, they were mistaken. She passed away August 26. Less than 2 months after she was diagnosed. My youngest brother had turned 15 years old just 9 days earlier.
Back to the passport. She got it on January 24,1984. My brother Doug's birthday. It was never signed. It had no stamps. It has never been out of the United States. I have been fortunate enough to fulfill most of my travel dreams, because my mother's death taught me to not put things off or the opportunity may never come. Amongst the things I have packed for my trip, right alongside my passport, is my mother's passport. I will go through passport control in Frankfurt. Maybe the passport officer will stamp not only my passport, but my mother's too. Either way, from now on when I leave the country my mother, manifested in her passport, will come along.
