The Pacific

The first time I saw the ocean, I was 7 years old.  Coming from the Midwest, I remember the wonder I felt upon laying eyes on something so massive.  As I grew older and continued to travel, my marvel with the ocean never diminished.  I can now classify it as nothing less than a spiritual experience.  So, when Javier was born,  I knew that taking him to the ocean was essential.  However, I was unaware how challenging that task would be.

Javier turned 8 in May, and with great pride and sadness we celebrated another year.  Pride is, I believe, something every parent feels with the growth of their child.  However, I felt saddened
when I realized that Javi had never ventured out of our little world in the Midwest; and his time in the Midwest consisted of a rather mundane routine of school, doctors and home.  I had spent much of my time since becoming a mother traveling; using it as a sort of respite, but had never been brave enough to do it with him.  I was afraid.  I was nervous about flying with him, about being away from our beloved Gillette, about changing his routine: everything.  But this year, it suddenly seemed far more haunting to me that Javier could live his entire life and never see the majesty of the world.  So I did the only rational thing I could think of.  We sold all of our stuff, packed some suitcases, hopped on a plane and moved to Alaska.

I wish I could say "it was easy", the end.  Or even, "it has had its challenges but its great", the end.  But what fun are things of ease?  We landed in Alaska on September 3rd.  The flight went well, though the preparation was something of a hellish nightmare (though a lot of great work was done on the part of the Delta CRO office in Minneapolis who planned the entire trip and made the flight possible at all). Luckily, we had a house waiting for us which was already partially occupied by my best friends from high school and their 3 little girls that we moved into that night. 

On September 7th, my mother (she was along to help with the move), Javier and myself made the drive from Anchorage to Homer, AK.  For those of you who have never been, it is a place of dreams.  We pulled our rental car down near the beach and I unloaded his wheelchair from the back.  I noticed a slight tremor in my hand as the knowledge that something quite significant was about to happen washed over me.  I loaded little Javi into his wheelchair, and pushed him down through the rocks and onto the sand. The sun hit his face, and all of the glory of the world was before him.  I stepped back, and remembered how I felt at his age when I took it all in for the first time.  A few tears rolled over my cheeks as I acknowledged the accomplishment that we had just made. The world was his, and never would he be the same; nor would the world.

So, even though getting him to the ocean was one of the most daunting tasks I have yet undertaken, there is nothing I would change about it.  That was the moment of a lifetime for me.