Like Grandparent, Like Grandchild

Although my father and mother imparted wisdom about their travels to me, the individuals the most inspired me to become a Wanderlust travel junkie are my grandparents. They hand spent almost their entire lives in York, Pennsylvania, but did indeed escape from its maw at one point to see the world. Both of them graduated from schools in the area, my grandfather from the Catholic school and my grandmother from the city school. They got married shortly after graduation, at which point my grandfather was in the Air Force and on his way to becoming one of their head cryptologist. This was during the time of the peace riots and protests, and he also happens to be in Birmingham, Alabama. When things got too crazy, and safety was becoming endangered, they left and went to Fairbanks, Alaska. Although their honeymoon was short, they more than made up for it by being in Fairbanks.

In Fairbanks, Alaska, there really is no such thing as a light and day cycle for most of the year. And the summer, the Sun never sets. In winter, the Sun never rises. The weather is usually pretty frigid, and as such, the only people that would walk the streets at night or to and from work would be government officials and my grandfather. Not even the locals there to face the chilling Arctic winds that sometimes reached 30°F below 0. He saw the Northern Lights more times than he can count on his hands, lived in an igloo for a month, met with the locals in the Alaskan Bush People (literally), and ate the food of the locals, which included a lot of potatoes and fish. And yes, he even went dog sledding once or twice.

To this day, my grandparents continue to tell me all some stories about their travels. After having their 5 children, they didn't get to see her do a whole lot, but when they did have enough money scraped together to get away, they took full advantage of it. A lot of family day trips around the area were had, and once or twice, they even got to see things in a different state. Thanks to my grandparents, I have been inspired to see the things that they have done and the places they have gone.

And so, within budgetary constraints, that is my goal. I want to see and do as much as I can, in the spirit of the locale. And I will do this as long and as often as I am possibly able to. I want to get to my grandparents age and have a lot of stories to tell. Let's make it happen.

Nuclear Fission

A once happy family of three.

Before going into the content of the post, let me describe what the title means. In family studies in Psychology, we call the building blocks of a traditional family a nuclear family. This includes a maternal figure, a paternal figure, and a child. This is the building block, the nucleotide, the atom of familial structure. When an atom splits in a chemical sense, it is called nuclear fission. I have chosen the title of this post due to my family background, which I will now explain.

In the beginning, I was a happy accident. My mother was deemed unfair told by several doctors, and my father never planned on having children after his first marriage had failed. However, into the world I came, exactly a week after my dad's birthday and exactly a week before Halloween. My parents went on two honeymoons; one to Saint Thomas, and one to Cancun, Mexico. I was six months old when they decided they would marry and try the whole marriage thing again, mostly for the sake of me. We never had a whole lot of money, but what spare money we had, we enjoyed by traveling to amusement parks and small things within an hour or two drive.

My father, unfortunately, was an alcoholic. He didn't care very much about his health, and an ultimately did him in. He developed pancreatic cancer and passed away when I was 15, leaving behind many unanswered questions, and a lifetime of opportunities unexplored. My mother herself was a survivor of breast cancer, and something that she never took for granted. In fact, it was through her illness that we discovered my father's illness, and he taught me some of my greatest life lessons during our final chat before he went on hospice.

I still remember the conversation like it was yesterday. I was young and naive, so I didn't realize that he was getting ready to say goodbye to this lifetime. You see, at the Cancer Center in Philadelphia, there is a pineapple statue in the center of a fountain. This pineapple is said to bring joy peace, courage, hope, and strength to patients and their families. It was at this Fountain, where I had wheeled my dad in his wheelchair, that he gave me some of life's greatest lessons.

It was here that my dad taught me that he had a list of things that he never got to do with us, or for himself. It was here that he told me to go out and see the world and do whatever I could to make him and Mom proud. And he also told me that I have one short lifetime, so I better take care of my mom the best that I know how. I didn't think much of the conversation at the time, but it's time he wrote it on words, I started to understand more and more what he was actually saying.

Fast forward to present day, and it's been about eight years since the family split after his passing. I still do whatever I can to see the good in everything, to take care of this world around me, and to see as much of it as I possibly can. And I know I won't stop until my biological clock runs out. I will do everything that I can to keep the family together and going strong, while using my father's stories as fuel for the fire.