Brave Enough To Be Bliss

I kicked it off with a Labor Day weekend trip to Nashville, Tenn., as a surprise gift for her July birthday so she would have some time to look forward to it. She hadn’t said she’d like to go there; I just thought it was a short enough flight for a long we ekend, we hadn’t ever been before, and the flight was inexpensive. It turned out to be a great choice. We made the country music industry stops you’d expect, we took a dinner cruise on the river, we went on a homes of the stars tour, and toward the end of the tour truly did see Nicole Kidman coming out of church with her daughters, and we did some back-to-school shopping.

We took our annual fall break trip to Arizona, and while we still enjoyed going there, we had learned there was an air of nostalgia without her dad.

Then the best surprise of all was a Christmas gift trip to New York City on January 2. There really aren’t even words to describe how much fun we had on that trip. It started with a delayed flight to St. Louis which caused us to miss our connecting flight to the Big Apple. They booked us on the next flight, but it was going to be really tight to get to the show, Jersey Boys , on time. After arriving in New York, we caught a taxi that took us to the hotel, watching the clock the whole way as every minute counted. We had maybe 10 minutes to get to our room and change and then literally had to run to the show. We made it in time and even had two minutes to spare, which allowed us just enough time to buy something to drink and some peanut M&Ms. We were starving because we hadn’t eaten anything except a couple airplane snacks since breakfast.

She later told me she hadn’t been that excited about the show but ended up absolutely loving it. And then after the show, one of my favorite moments of her life that I will never, ever forget was when we walked out, and the snow was gently and beautifully falling with the city already covered in white. As we walked toward Times Square, she stopped, looked directly at me, and said, “It’s magical.” And she meant it. And my heart melted and if I had allowed myself to cry back then, I would have been a mess because just writing about it has tears streaming down my face. Her facial expression, the snow in her hair, the way she said it…absolutely everything about it was precious and one of those moments of perfection in life that became permanently etched in my mind. And that set the tone for the most wonderful four days,

that actually turned into seven.

Trying to be conservative and not knowing what she would want to do, I had booked a relatively short trip for us. But when we got to LaGuardia to head home, our flight was canceled, along with most others, and we couldn’t get a flight home for three more days. This had also happened to us in Arizona the previous spring bre ak, so we felt very fortunate and certainly made the most of it. And I didn’t allow myself to worry about the money, I just soaked in and savored each and every moment. Spring break was a trip to Jamaica with her best friend’s family , which was a blast for all of us. So much laughter, and so many stories we still talk about today. And then in the summer the annual trip to Table Rock Lake. It had been quite a year, so I created a photobook to give her that Christmas including photos from her high school graduation (the photo of the three of us is in there), the Foundation Trail Run, and all the trips we took. It is my hope that when she has kids graduating someday, that she will take a moment and dig out the photobook from the cedar chest her dad gave me and relive that magical New York City moment in her mind knowing just how much that moment and all those memories we created sustained me through the years that were to come.

71