Not even two months before our trip my grandma had a severe stroke. After some slow recovery she had an infection in her brain which required surgery on our travel day. I had spent such a huge amount of time this winter worried about our trip being canceled because of snow (we live in the Northeast and are schoolteachers so when we use too many snow days we lose days off of Spring Break) it suddenly seemed trivial. I am normally so easygoing and optimistic but I really needed a vacation and I was so worried I would have to postpone until summer. This trip seemed so perfect and so well deserved that I lost sleep and stressed even though in retrospect that was so silly. On the day of our trip when my grandma was having brain surgery I prayed so much that I felt so stupid for caring if snow would ruin my trip- all that really mattered was if my grandma would be okay. My grandma is the kind of grandma that that could make everything okay. She would yell at us and then five minutes later distract us with something in a sing-songy tone or do something so silly (not always on purpose) that we would be on to the next thing before we knew it. She had candy hidden everywhere and is present in so many of the important memories of my life. I can't picture my life without her in it and on the cold New York day I didn't know if I could get on the plane with out knowing she was okay.
Just before we boarded I got a text from my mom saying she made it through surgery. The road ahead is still long but she is still holding my grandpa's hand and giving us hope for a recovery that I know she has left in her. To distract ourselves from worry my husband and I reminisced about a Disney World story starring my grandma. My grandma and grandpa have a condo on Anna Maria Island in Florida and they used to go down during the winter to escape New York for a while. On one trip they headed up to Disney World. One of my favorite stories is about my grandma on the People Mover. She saw the track and saw the cars moving around Tomorrowland including over by Space Mountain. Not knowing the name of the ride but seeing the track she hopped on the Space Mountain line AND RODE IT thinking she was on the People Mover. It makes me laugh just thinking about it and the People Mover is even more special to me knowing her mistake! I snapped these pics on the People Mover during Wishes on our last night in Disney in March. :)
No comments :
Post a Comment