(43 Weeks)
“Welcome home!” said the customs agent at Shannon Airport noticing my place of birth on my U.S. Passport. It was hardly home given that I had only spent a total of two weeks there over the course of the previous 45 years since I had left for America as a toddler.
This particular day was my daughter’s 12th birthday and Easter weekend. It was her first trip to Ireland, a country that regarded her as a “citizen born abroad.” On this particular holiday weekend, she would meet her aunts and uncles and many cousins for the first time.
When her father and I were planning our trip to Ireland in 1996, “Take the tour!” was the advice we got from a well-meaning Irish-born friend. That was actually pretty good advice. On my first trip back with my parents 20 years earlier, that’s exactly what we did. We got to see a lot of the country and all the arrangements were taken care of by the tour operator. My parents were smart like that.
We were not. We didn’t follow that advice. For one, I had already been on the tour. Two, we were going to meet my biological mother and she had invited us to stay with her. Chris said, “Okay, but why not a hotel at least?” I figured it would be more cost efficient to stay with someone we’d never met before in accommodations with no reviews.
The accommodations weren’t four-star, but they were perfectly acceptable. What I didn’t understand in making these travel plans was the emotional implications of meeting one’s biological mother and several siblings and how much I’d really need a place to retreat to occasionally.
We wound up getting a ride back to Dublin with one of my sisters after a couple days. We then spend three nights in Dublin in three different hotels because of my poor advanced planning and wound up cutting the trip short. And Chris never had an interest in returning.
I wanted my daughter to meet her family. So, when I felt she was old enough to appreciate it and be a good travel companion we began to plan this mother-daughter trip. Given my previous experience, I planned it more smartly. We still stayed with family, but we purposedly made it a long weekend just to test the waters. Everyone was left wanting more.
She and I returned for a 10-day summer trip the following year. And thus began our string of regular visits to the homeland. We went for the Rock N Roll Dublin Half Marathon in 2013. A family wedding in 2015. Christmas in 2017. I tried not to let more than 18 months or so pass between visits.
We struck a nice balance between hotel stays and accommodations provided by family. We learned how to pack efficiently. After feeling like a burden on family over the course of several trips, I finally rented a car and adapted to driving on the left. Ireland now really did feel like home. I even found my “happy place” in Roscommon – Lough Key Forest Park – and my favorite spots in Galway (my favorite city, although I may be bias) and Dublin.
Our last trip was six years ago this week, in the middle of our move to Chicago, to attend my sister’s wedding. Another long weekend in Galway. It was a fun-filled four days enjoying the company of family and making more memories with my daughter. Between college and moving expenses, the pandemic and now work schedules we haven’t been able to get back.
I don’t know what the next trip will look like. Kurt has only met my sister and niece. They visited us last year for my daughter’s birthday/Easter weekend which was a nice bookend to our trip visiting them, celebrating the same occassions, in 2012.
One of the things I learned on that trip from overhearing the discussion between two passengers sitting in front of us, is that Ireland may be a good place to live out my final years. The mother of one of the women was Irish-born, and even after a lifetime in the States, was eligible for healthcare in Ireland. Long-term care in Ireland I learned – factoring in trips for family members to visit occasionally too – was still cheaper than in the U.S.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s now probably time I just start building memories of Ireland that include Kurt too. I’d like my whole family to meet him, and vice versa. He is after all my husband of almost three years, and to date we’ve spent about 95% of our “family time” with his.
Did you really think this wasn’t going to include a fundraiser? It’s me. Of course it is! Over the course of these 60 weeks, I am hoping to raise $6000 for the children of Mercy Home for Boys & Girls (that’s just $100 a week!). To learn more about Mercy Home and my why, please visit my fundraising page. Thank you.
