Trips

One week from today will be March 1. February has been a hard month in so many ways and I do want it to pass away. And in March, Max and I will take a trip to the UK. We haven’t really traveled other than long weekends at the Jersey Shore, our Wish Trip in 2016, and our stint in Ann Arbor Michigan with the SPG4 guru in 2015. Oh, we all also attended Augmentative Communication Family Camp (Camp Chatterbox) for a week in New Jersey.

But Max and I never went away alone together while Sarah was alive. We couldn’t deal with the anxiety of leaving her. This is something a lot of special needs parents go through, although I also have special need parent friends who regularly take time away by themselves and that’s great too. There is a terrific respite program pretty close to us that is apparently like a resort for special needs kids, with a pool and tons of activities, and Sarah would have qualified for a couple of weekends a year there. There were several kids she knew who absolutely loved Jill’s House and looked forward to their weekends there. But she had no interest in going and we didn’t push her. Ditto her summer camp, which was an inclusive day camp, offered overnight outings to places like Hershey Park. Although she loved camp, she did not want to go on overnights. Period. End of subject. Sarah knew her own mind.

Did I mention that my husband has a Ph.D. in Victorian Literature? Despite this fact, he’s never been to the UK. In fact, he’s one of those Americans who have not been outside the USA. I’ve been to the UK three times, and have been to France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria, plus Canada and Mexico. I’d really like to go to Greece and Turkey, and the Middle East, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Iceland, India, Australia, Namibia, Zambia, Kenya, Egypt, Botswana, Morocco, China, Malaysia, Ecuador, Belize and a few others I can’t think of right now. But Max has never been to London and I want to see him discover it in person, and other places too. It’s our first trip together since our honeymoon.

The big questions are, of course, will Sarah be coming with us? Can she fly with the plane? We will have a dog sitter for Polly. Perhaps Sarah prefers to hang out at the house? What if she’s not able to find us in the UK? Will she be upset? I’d like to think of her as having echolocation, like a dolphin. She would just need to signal “Mom” or “Dad” and her senses would ping off of us, wherever we are. Part of me really is scared to do this without her. But we are looking forward to it.