Holding Space In Our Hearts

The airline text read "flight canceled." I stared at it for a few seconds before I opened the entire text to read it and click through. Sure enough, our flight was canceled. 

I told my wife Amy. "Call the airline," she said.

The airline confirmed that due to extreme weather in the midwest, we wouldn't be able to get out there until Sunday. It was Friday morning and the celebration of life memorial we were going to was on Saturday. Unfortunately that travel math didn't work for us. 

We had been looking forward to seeing family and celebrate Aunt Julie's life. Aunt Julie had been married to Amy's Uncle Brian and sadly passed away last year. She was a joyous loving soul who loved travel, dancing, cooking, playing games, was quite the artist, and generally loved to have fun. We enjoyed our visits and travels with her and Brian over the years and really wanted to be there. It also wasn't lost on us that years ago when we traveled with her and Uncle Brian to Boston was the year before we were pregnant with our daughter Beatrice. 

But again, the travel math wasn't going to work for us. It was the beginning of our kids' spring break, so we quickly brainstormed what we should do, if anything. Do we just do a stay-cation and stay home? Or, do we go somewhere else and spend way too much money? The latter won out. 

Amy wondered out loud what Julie would want us to do. "Maybe we should go down south and go to Disney and/or Universal and have some fun. What do you think?" she asked me.

She waited for me to respond no, my usual default reaction, but I didn't say no this time. 

"Sure, but we need to make sure we can get tickets since it is the beginning of spring break," I said. 

"Beatrice and Bryce, do you want to go to Universal and maybe Disney?" Amy said.

Multiple cheers confirmed the affirmative -- they definitely wanted to go. So, that's when we pretty quickly pivoted and rebooked our trip to LA, grateful that we could actually do that. Fortunately there were hotel rooms and park tickets available. 

Beatrice and Bryce thoroughly enjoyed our last-minute spring break trip pivot and every ride we went on at Disneyland and Universal, even with the long line wait times and the crush of people. Amy and I enjoyed as well, and throughout the entire trip, held space in our hearts to celebrate Aunt Julie's life and the fun she definitely would've wanted us to have, and would've had with us had she been there. 

Holding space in our hearts for the best of us makes the most of every moment wherever we are.