Girls’ Trip

In the early days after my dad passed following a decline that was at once painfully slow but also way too fast, I told my mom I wanted to do a girls’ trip back to her hometown. Dad had promised to take her there one more time before they died, but he wasn’t able to keep up his end of the bargain. There were so many things he still planned to do. Even as his condition worsened and he became bedridden he talked about wanting to take us on a dinner river cruise. It wasn’t until his final days that he suggested he might have to stay home when we went.

It’s weird how suddenly the last visit to a place ends up being your last visit. There is no warning, no voice in your head telling you to enjoy every minute because they will be the last ones you have. My parents’ last trip together to our house happened in May of 2019. I’m sure their last trip to my mom’s hometown happened earlier than that. 

When I was a kid, we spent two weeks each summer in Jacksonville, Florida. That’s where Mom grew up and where my grandparents lived. My family of six loaded up the luggage and piled into the wood-paneled station wagon, my sister and I lying between the suitcases in the back, and made the 14-hour drive from Indiana. When we stopped for boiled peanuts in Georgia, we knew we were getting closer, and when we crossed the Swanee River, we knew we were practically there. Not once did we cross it without singing the song. 

Our first stop, once we got to Jacksonville was always my grandparents’ small orange-brick house nestled among the mansions not far from the St. John’s River. That stop was always the best but also the hardest because we were so close to our destination but not quite there —for me and my siblings the goal was Jacksonville Beach. 

My memories of those visits were of walks along the St. John’s River, of trips to local seafood restaurants where I always ordered a friend shrimp basket (Mmmm hush puppies!), and of hours and hours playing on the beach. 

Driving with Falcon from our home six hours north to pick up Mom at my parents’ home in Indiana and then continuing down to Florida, I realized I had so many other memories. A lot of them are of my dad knowing the way. 

Traveling all of those miles with four kids in a station wagon had to have been stressful, but I don’t remember that. I remember buying different flavors of Fanta. I remember staying in connected hotel rooms in Atlanta. I remember Chattanooga and Castle Rock. I remember the smell of the ocean as we crossed the bridge over the intercostal waterway. 

Our trip to Florida this week was constantly directed by the gps on my phone. I got us all the way there and back without incident. We saw my grandparents’ old neighborhood and got to the beach, and we never got lost. But I can’t say I ever really knew the way. Dad did, though, and our girls’ trip to Florida this week made more aware of having lost him than ever before. 

Jacksonville Beach, June 2023

Sunrise, June 2023

Fried shrimp basket tastes as good as I remember 

Mom and I on the beach when I was 3

Fishing on the St. John’s River with Grandpa when I was 3

Dad and I on our way to Florida