Travel Memories

Not a single day goes by without me missing my little girl.  Seven years.  How is it possible that it has already been seven years?  As noisy and busy and chaotic as our house tends to be with three extremely active little boys running, jumping, bouncing, flying, light saber battling, nerf gun shooting, and otherwise tearing through the house every waking moment, I miss the added chaos of a little girl in the mix.  I'm sure it would be even wilder, and our house would certainly be crammed full with even more toys (dolls, princess dresses, jewelry kits), but what I wouldn't give to have that crazy and that mess!  The boys miss having a sister.  All three of them talk about her often.  They even ask if God will send another baby, another girl, so they can have a sister on earth.  Sweet boys.

My husband and I were talking last night about traveling, past and future, and the memories we've made and hope to make.  I shared with him one of the happiest moments of my life.  We were in Germany when our Sunshine son was 13 months old.  Our first stop was Berlin, and we enjoyed an amazing bicycle tour.  After the tour, we walked to the Lustgarden (a green space with a pretty fountain across from the Berliner Dom).  We sat on the grass and enjoyed relaxing, people watching, and, for me at least, soaking in that I'd finally made it to Europe, specifically Germany, a dream I had had since I was a little girl.  I was married to an incredibly wonderful man, we had this sweet little baby, and we were traveling the world without any worries (at least for a couple of weeks before we had to return to reality).  Life was perfect.  I was truly happy and completely content.  I knew life could only get better when we were doing it again with our next little one.  Only our next little one would never get to go....

Just a few weeks into our pregnancy with Elena, I was already dreaming about another European excursion.  We'd need to go before baby turned two so that we could get that huge discount on infant overseas airfare.  And we definitely needed to make it happen; after all, big brother was a seasoned traveler with the passport stamps to prove it, it would only be fair to let this baby get some stamps as well.

Our next big trip wasn't to Europe, nor did it include the baby we so badly wanted to bring.  I actually should have still been carrying her.  In a perfect world, we would have gone to Disney World with our friends while I was big and pregnant.  In an alternate scenario with a happy ending, we would have missed Disney altogether because I would have been lying in a hospital on bedrest until October.  But as our real world turned out, we went to Disney in the midst of our grief because it had been planned, because I didn't know how to face my son's birthday and planning a party and entertaining family, because I didn't know what else to do.

A few months after our Rainbow/subsequent son was born, my husband had to travel to Italy for business.  It seemed the perfect opportunity to piggyback a vacation onto the tail end of the business trip, allowing us to get to Europe again and only having to buy two full price tickets.  That trip was far from wonderful (more often than not it was downright miserable and was the basis of our decision to never try to piggyback a family vacation onto a business trip again), but we still took some decent memories from it, and we got to write Elena's name in the sand on a beach outside of Venice, which was pretty neat.  But there was another memory as powerful as my Berlin memory if not as sweet.  The power lay in the potential of the moment, because I truly believe had Elena been there, it would have surpassed that Berlin moment as the happiest travel memory of our lives.  We had hiked up to Parco della Rocca Borromea overlooking the town and the lake.  My husband and I sat at a picnic table with a snack from the tiny restaurant up there, sipping wine, enjoying the beauty and the solitude, my sweet Rainbow in my arms, my Sunshine playing on the playground with the sunlight on the lake glittering as a backdrop.  I remember thinking how beautiful the trees were, how beautiful everything was.  And I cried thinking of how almost perfect this was.  And even though I held my sweet baby boy in my arms, my arms still ached from the missing of her weight in them too.  She would have turned two while we were there.  We celebrated her birthday in that beautiful little town in Italy, and it should have been perfect, and I felt like I was dying inside.  I had made it back to Europe after all, but I hadn't gotten to bring the baby I had longed to take.

So many dreams, so many plans for her life and for our lives together - and they'll never be realized.  So many memories that will never be made.  I miss you Elena, and I love you always.