I spent Thanksgiving in Sedona, Arizona. It was one of the places from my childhood where I saw my parents the happiest. It felt like a magical place to me because of how happy they were. My parents were...
I spent Thanksgiving in Sedona, Arizona. It was one of the places from my childhood where I saw my parents the happiest. It felt like a magical place to me because of how happy they were. My parents were so in love with Sedona that my mom even said she would absolutely be retiring there and my dad agreed 100% that he would too. What I understood to be just a fun family vacation to the Grand Canyon, at the time, has turned out to be monumentally more than that for me all these years later.
That family trip cemented for me that my parents did, in fact, truly love each other because they spoke about where they wanted to be years and years from that day…and it was together. I found that to be so wonderful because marriage didn’t always seem to suit my parents well. It seemed like hard work.
They argued often throughout my child and teen years so I began to believe that maybe marriage wasn’t the right choice for them. I never understood how two people could love each other and yet be so unhappy with each other at the same time. That was clearly my age and naivety talking though. I didn’t understand what love and marriage truly meant at that young age, but thankfully my parents did. They continued to choose love over everything else for years to come after that trip until my mom’s untimely passing.
I always kept our family vacation to Arizona close to my heart because I loved who my parents were on that trip, separately and together. I had the best time of my life with them on that trip.
My father passed away last month and I have been overcome with grief all over again. This time; however, it feels so crippling because I no longer have either of my parents with me. I also think I’m struggling so badly with this grief because my dad was able to be a grandparent to my boys…something my mom never had the opportunity to be. Seeing my father as a grandpa truly was the most blessed era of my life so far.
Yes, I’m blessed to be a mother, but I feel like my most profound accomplishments have been centered around opening my home and my heart up to my father so he could be the best version of a parent he always wanted to be for my brother and me, but with his grandsons. He was able to reinvent himself for them and aim to do it better this time—with divine guidance from my mom, I’m sure—and that he did.
I’m realizing more and more as I raise a special needs child and a toddler in my 40s that being a parent is monumentally impactful. The pressure is always on to raise them the right way. Teach them life lessons and what it means to have strong morals and values, all while trying to be a good person to everyone else in your life and trying to make your mark on this world in some way.
How I manage my responsibilities and stress and relationships, especially the one with their father is paramount because it is shaping how they will manage their own in the future. And now they are watching me as I manage my immense grief over losing their grandpa, and I am trying to do it in a way that doesn’t overly concern or scare them, especially Nico. I want them to understand that it’s ok to be sad; it’s ok to cry because it means that person was loved tremendously.
My Nico observes me from afar while my Max gets right up in my face with his twenty questions and overcharged toddler energy. Nico misses his grandpa, but doesn’t quite have the words to express it so he keeps his grandpa’s handkerchief close by at all times. Max understands that grandpa is “in the sky” and so he looks up to the sky and tells him he loves him and that he misses him.
They know when I’m having a hard day and am really missing my father because they watch everything I do and listen to everything I say. They know when I’m happy or sad, when I’m excited or frustrated, when I’m upset with them or frustrated with their dad, and when I’m lost in my own thoughts.
And I can’t help but think that that was exactly how I was with my own parents. Always silently observing them and deciding if it was going to be a day where they “loved each other” or a day where they didn’t. It sounds crummy when I phrase it that way, I know, but when you’re a child seeing your parents argue instead of embrace each other with love and affection, that’s what it seems to boil down to. For children, I think it tends to be black and white. They eventually learn that there can be gray area with age and life experience.
Now that I’m a wife and a mother, I think about this dynamic all the time.
Are my boys seeing me as I want to be seen?
Are they seeing their parents as a loving team?
Are they forming their understanding of what love is through observing my husband and me?
And when we argue, do they think that we don’t love each other?
I find that there is nothing worse than history repeating itself when you want so much for it not to be repeated.
I want my boys to see how much I love my husband, their father, and know that even when we are unhappy with each other it’s really just stemming from a situation or current circumstance or the stresses of life. It’s not meant to be permanent.
I want them to pay closer attention to when we are laughing hysterically with each other, holding each other close on the couch, making plans for the next great family adventure, and consoling each other as we try to work through the hardships that life has thrown our way.
That’s what I wish I spent more time focusing on when my parents were raising me. I’m only now remembering all the beautiful moments they shared.
I think that’s why I came to Sedona and to the Grand Canyon. So I could rewrite my parents love story in my head.
I wanted to be in the same exact places they were when they were the absolute happiest. To be where they said they wanted to grow old together. Because I see now that when they were able to strip away the stresses of life and escape the hardships they were facing, they found their love for each other again.
I hope my boys saw the sheer excitement and contentment my husband and I had while exploring the same beautiful places their grandparents did over 30 years ago. I know I felt peace in my heart and love for my husband on this trip. And although the trip wasn’t free of all mishaps and meltdowns, at its core it was a trip for the Luna record books.
I didn’t appreciate the beauty of this magical southwestern landscape when I was young, just like I know my boys don’t right now. But, I do hope that this trip was imprinted on their hearts because they saw how enamored their parents were with it.
It’s almost surreal, but when my husband said that we had to now be the ones to retire in Sedona I felt like something truly magical did take place here.
I know life will continue to throw me curve balls and I may very well be retiring with both my husband and my Nico to Sedona someday. But my ultimate hope is that no matter what life throws our way, my husband and I will tackle it together, side by side.
I want my boys to see that real love withstands hardship, heartache, and distance because it does. And the reason I know this is because, in my dreams, I saw my father embrace my mother after years of distance and they fell right back in love again. That will be the story I share with my boys for years to come when they say they miss their grandpa.
That’s what I saw when I walked amongst the clouds at the Grand Canyon this Thanksgiving. My parents, hand in hand, marveling at the life I have made for myself and at the loves of my life who make it worth living.
For me, that moment up in the clouds was what I was most thankful for this year. It was truly magical.