Cruising Through Life as a Young Widow
I Haven’t Moved on, but I Have Moved Forward.
I just got back from a family vacation with my dad and stepmom, my sister and her two kids, and me and my daughter. We were on a cruise that went to South America, Central America and a few of the Caribbean Islands. We were gone for about 12 days and rung in the New Year together — something that hasn’t been done, maybe ever — in the history of our small family.
This is my fifth cruise — but my first one without Joel. The last one we took was just the three of us — Joel, myself, and our daughter — and it was our favorite cruise by far. We woke up in Barcelona, went to sleep in Monaco… then woke up in Rome, circling back to the French Riviera… it was an amazing time, a “Best Of” tour of the Mediterranean. The impetus for that trip was that Joel had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis a few years prior and was concerned, even before his symptoms really starting to plague him, about his mobility. He wanted to take a trip with our daughter “while I can still walk,” he said. So of course, we went.
It was August and the weather was hot. Heat exacerbates the symptoms of MS. Joel could walk, but at times it was labored. I remember our day touring Pompeii. Even though it was early morning, it was hot, humid, and crowded with tourists. Like most families, we…
