Last November, my Dad told me that he wanted to see Neuschwanstein Castle, Salzburg, Vienna, Lake Hallstatt in Austria, and Venice. He also noted that he was 81 and that he "needed to do these things quick." I was in the middle of unexpectedly buying a house and not exactly in the mood to plan a big family trip, but my sisters and I agreed that we needed to make this happen. (Side note: Never underestimate the power of clearly communicating your wishes and expectations in your relationships.) I think the pandemic and Scott's illness made us all realize how uncertain and fleeting life can be, and that we needed to seize every opportunity to make happy memories together. So I'm grateful that I was to be able to go on this trip with my parents and sisters over the past two weeks. We started with a guided tour through Munich, Salzburg, and Vienna. My sisters joined us in Vienna, and we did a day trip to Hallstatt and then took a train to Venice.
Early in the trip, I had a free afternoon while my parents were resting at the hotel and went to the English Garden, which is Munich's version of Central Park. I checked out the surfers (yes there are surfers in Munich - they surf on artificial waves in a canal in the English Garden) and then decided to go to the Monopteros, a small circular temple in the park with views of the city. Google Maps gave me nonsensical directions that led to a dead end, so I did some backtracking and navigating on my own to find it. Eventually I got there, and I climbed the steps leading up to the temple.
Tears filled my eyes as I looked out over the park and the city. Scott and I loved to travel, and it was our tradition to climb something (a hill, a mountain, a tower, etc) to get a view of the area we were visiting. On our honeymoon he once lured me to the top of the Duomo in Florence with gelato. Now I was standing at the top of the Monopteros surrounded by families and couples, and I felt terribly alone. I still felt connected with Scott, but it wasn't the same as holding his hand and hearing his opinions on things. My "victory" at finding the Monopteros felt hollow without him there. And yet I found myself appreciating the golden sunlight on the park and the city, and the cool breeze blowing through my hair and rustling the trees around me. Again I was struck by how life could be so painful and beautiful at the same time.
Our enigmatically named but illustrious tour director, Dr. Q, turned out to be a guide both for travel and for life. During our tour, Dr. Q shared that he had battled cancer and other serious health challenges during his life, and that he tries to stay positive with the philosopher Heraclitus' concept of Panta Rhei ("everything flows"), that you can never step into the same stream twice. If you're going through a dark time, take comfort in knowing that one day it will pass, and if you're experiencing a happy moment, be present and enjoy it because it too will pass. This reminded me of something my brother-in-law John once said when I shared that Scott had told me to think of him whenever I saw the constellation Orion or a running stream. John observed the contrast between the stars as eternally fixed in their never changing revolutions (an Aristotelian idea) vs. the constant flux of Heraclitus' running stream, and this unity of opposites captures something true about grief. Grief is something that I will always have, but it is also always changing how it manifests itself at any given moment. That observation by John blew my mind (still does), and hearing Dr. Q talk about Panta Rhei reminded me to try and shift my perspective on being on this trip without Scott.
Scott wanted me to go on adventures after he was gone, and that was certainly the case for this trip. On our final evening in Venice, we walked through St. Mark's Square to experience the city one last time. The square was beautifully lit, the evening was pleasantly cool, and the band outside one of the cafes was playing "Time to Say Goodbye" which might be cheesy anywhere else, but in Venice felt perfect. In that moment I realized that I was glad to be alive, even after all the pain of the past two years. I was grateful to be there with my family and that we got to meet so many wonderful people over the course of the trip.
The contradiction of having happy moments without Scott still feels strange. I don't know what future trips without him will look like and that is something that I still need to figure out, but this trip showed me that I still have a desire to see the world, experience new things, and meet new people, and that feels like a step toward healing.
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