First time out

I fell off the blogging bandwagon because we had our first vacation since Colin’s death as a family of four – I don’t really count our Leipzig/Dresden trip in October because that felt more like an escape after the funeral, albeit a pleasant one – and I did want to power down. I haven’t blogged since returning home because we bought a new TV and I’ve been trying to come to terms with the fact that I own an appliance with which I can apparently have conversations. Also, my back is acting up, so that’s thrown me a bit off my game.

But the point of this entry is to mark the fact that we had a vacation without Colin. It was difficult at times. It was bittersweet at times. All of that was probably magnified by the fact that his sixth birthday fell in the middle of it. But we did it.

Because nothing is normal in our lives any more, the first thing we did upon leaving on our vacation was to return straight to the house to get a copy of his death certificate. Christina headed to her parents’ house for a solo visit after we wrapped up our vacation and she was going to speak to her Dad’s banker about breaking up an account set up there in Colin’s name.

The second thing was to stop at the drug store, but that’s a pretty mundane thing to do while heading out on a road trip. And then the third thing was to stop at his grave, because we were going to leave him alone for a week and I don’t think any of us was quite prepared to just head off without a quick goodbye.

And then we had our vacation. It was at this resort in southern Germany called the Ulrichshof, a place we’ve visited every year since Emma was born. Imagine taking a cruise: You’ve got ridiculous amounts of food and a pool and a spa and staff willing to take just about any ridiculous request you throw at them. It’s just like that, except you’re in what used to be an old farmhouse in the Bavarian woods, just one that’s been heavily renovated.

We’d been there with Colin three or four times and even celebrated a couple of his birthdays there, so it was familiar territory. I’d been there twice without him: once in 2016 when he was getting chemo and Christina decided I needed to take the kids away and once last year, when he was in therapy in Brandenburg and Christina again decided Emma and Noah deserved their winter break. But this was the first time Christina had been there without him since his birth. It was tricky territory for all of us to navigate, but probably a bit more so for her.

The thing about the Ulrichshof is that it’s designed for families. You can’t check in without children. That’s part of the charm as a parent, since you know there will always be at least one table of children behaving worse than yours at mealtime. Even if you are the worst table in the room, everyone else there knows what you’re going through. It takes a lot of the pressure off.

That said, I certainly forgot how many children would be there. Or I hadn’t thought about the ramifications. And, since Emma and Noah are much more independent than they used to be, I had plenty of time to sit in the lobby reading while waiting for them to finish a movie or what-not and, everywhere I looked, there were children. If you squinted, you could pretend they were Colin. Even if you didn’t pretend, you could see that there were enough of them wearing Cars or Paw Patrol of Batman shirts – any of which Colin would have loved – and playing in some of the same spots he romped in just two years ago.

I had this phase when it became clear that he was dying where I wanted to walk up to young children and their parents and just warn them to enjoy every moment they had, because who knows what might happen. I never gave in to the instinct and it’s faded in the last few months, but it was there in full force at the Ulrichshof. I found myself staring at these other children and then realizing that I was probably making their parents uncomfortable but not able to explain “Oh, the reason I’m acting so creepy is the recent death of my son.”

We haven’t decided if we’re going back next year. I’m just not sure how eager I am to go through it all again. You see the children’s room in our suite decked out with space for three or four kids and you realize we only need two of them. You see the other parents hustling with their young children and you ask yourself “How come I have the time to drink a beer and read?” and you remember, it’s because your youngest died six months ago.

At the same time, it is a very nice and easy, if expensive, vacation. Emma and Noah will be crushed if we don’t go back. We’ll have to see how the next year treats us.

The end of our vacation also had its own peculiar note.

We had the usual scramble to pack everything away and get out by checkout time. It’s gotten harder on some levels because Emma and Noah keep disappearing into the depths of the play areas. We had finally corralled Emma to get her into her boots and jacket and she was about to escape again to say goodbye to some people. I asked her if she’d had a nice vacation.

“It should have been fuller,” she said.

I figured she meant full of more fun or more food or movies or something, so I asked what she meant.

“Fuller with one more person,” she responded, then smiled and ran down the stairs.