I was raised solely by my mom after a nasty divorce to end an abusive marriage. My mother often had multiple jobs throughout my childhood, but with the legal fees and menial salaries we were often tapped out. A lot of people in the world have it worse than we did, but it was a struggle.
I remember playing paper dolls with my mom in my bedroom one Saturday she was off and I was pretending they were traveling. She suggested that they see Europe so we put them in a shoebox, meant to be the airplane, and they toured ‘Europe‘ for the afternoon including the ‘Alps‘ which was the door frame. My mom loved England especially and she would always say ‘one day’, though I’m not sure she meant it. We weren’t exactly in a position to pick up and go anywhere.
Fast forward through the years, my mom got a better job and I worked almost non-stop to pay my way through college. The idea of Europe would still come up but it seemed fantastically ridiculous. Or was it? My graduation enabled me to find a well-paying job so I suggested that we go and in Summer 2014, we finally booked our tickets! We’d fly into Rome, Italy and fly out of Inverness, Scotland all while taking a train to see the places in between; a new city every day for 7 days. It was a sweet high to be able to reach that point in life and it felt lightyears aways from the little girl playing with paper dolls and wearing her cousin’s hand-me-down. We choose to go in October because a big work project of mine would be finishing.
Jet-lagged we get off the plane in Rome, Italy and the first stop is the Vatican. My mom was enthralled to see the place she watched on television every Christmas, it was surreal. Next stop, Florence Italy a lively and beautiful city that made me want to learn Italian and live there instead. I rubbed the boar’s nose indefinitely.
The cab drops us off at the hotel to drop off our bags before seeing the Uffizi. I love Renaissance art so beyond excited, we make our way from our room down the stairs to the street and suddenly my mom trips down the stairs. I speak broken Spanish which means I speak little to no Italian and I wonder how I’m going to ask for help. What do we do? She can still walk so we limp over to the Uffizi and we’re there less than an hour before her ankle has swollen to twice the size. A second wave of terror attacks me, maybe she is really hurt. Needing to rest, we decide to leave the museum. Walking out of the Uffizi is not a short journey and as we pass many rooms of art I’ll never see I’ll admit that I cried. I thought if I was going to cry in the Uffizi it would be over the art. I never cry, I’m an amateur boxer plus who cries on their dream vacation?
Waking up the next day, my mom talked of going home. I couldn’t help but to be so angry. I wasn’t angry with her falling, it was an accident and I know she wasn’t parkouring down the stairs. I felt like we were dogs and the Universe pulled the biscuit away from us right before we could eat it. It was such a tease. I cried for a second time as we moved from Florence to Milan.
We end up staying and moving from Paris and then England via RailEurope. Thankfully we had booked a double-decker bus tour of England so my mom was able to sit as we toured her dream city. As we asked the tour guide to point out MI-6, because she’s a huge Bond fan, I asked her if she was happy we stayed and her face in the photos said it all.
Finally, we reached Inverness, Scotland and we go on a Jacobite boat trip to find Nessie. Red-nosed after time on a chilly Loch Ness, the boat drops us off at Urquhart Castle and though she can’t walk around it very much, my mom was the happiest I had ever seen her.
It made the struggle, all of it, worth it and it inspires me to get up every day and try harder; to take the long hours and big projects if we can keep living this life. I can’t really call it a dream vacation but I wouldn’t trade the time with my mom for anything. Her ankle healed and we’re already planning our next vacation, though next time we’ll probably stay on the ground floor.
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