Memorial travel is a unique kind of travel segment, often tied to honoring someone you’ve lost or remembering something that had a profound impact on your life.
I had the opportunity to honor the life of my grandmother and complete her last wishes by heading down to Sarasota, Florida with my family, where she herself had taken her own kids nearly every year when they were younger.
She’d wanted our family to go down, to remember and celebrate her life, after she’d died, in a place where she’d always felt a little freer, a little more herself, and where she and her children, my mom included, made lasting memories together.
This was a trip that was fraught with uncertainty the moment we began planning it. My grandmother had passed seven years ago, and we’d planned a trip soon after her death.
Then the pandemic came and wiped it all away.
A few years later, post-pandemic, we tried again.
A health emergency came and led to us cancelling the trip.
We planned it again, during off-season.
A few weeks before the trip, a hurricane came and, quite literally, washed it all away.
So it took a lot longer than we’d hoped it would, and finally taking the trip felt like an uncertain dream. Would this fourth time around really be the charm? Or would we, yet again, be unable to satisfy my grandma’s last wishes?
Yet this time, everything held true.
And dear reader, we had the best time.
It wasn’t just the beauty of the ocean, or the calm, relaxing beach at the tip of Lido Key. It wasn’t just how surprisingly impressive the Ringling Museum was, or how much fun we had introducing the little ones to the ocean for the very first time. It wasn’t just the warm weather after a long winter of cold, or how all the flowers were blooming just for us, or how fascinating the region’s native banyan trees were.
Banyan trees at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota, Florida. (Photo Credit: Lacey Pfalz)
It was all of this, but it was also something more.
We were walking through my grandmother’s story, or a chapter of it. My mother felt at peace, as if a quest she’d undertaken for years was finally complete. I felt it too, and my brother, and on the beach, standing in the surf, we cried and smiled and held one another, each a piece of my grandmother, living on through us.
Memorial travel really isn’t about us. It’s about what we’re remembering, what we’re honoring. During our trip, we honored my grandmother, beautiful and vivacious, who struggled, and lived, and ultimately, overcame.
We listened to the sound of her voice from a voicemail I’d kept long ago, on that beach. She would’ve loved that art students from the local art college had been painting landscapes that day on the very same beach. How she’d loved and collected art of all kinds, from all over the world.
The trip, and its focus, made me consider that sometimes, it isn’t about where you go (though Sarasota is a lovely place to go). Sometimes, it’s more about why you go, and how you go. We didn’t plan an itemized itinerary, didn’t rush our days to fit in and see as much as we possibly could.
We simply rested, and allowed my mother to remember her time with her mother. And we did what we wanted to do as the need arose, visiting the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, the Jungle Gardens (so my mom could feed the flamingoes), the Ringling Museum and, of course, several area beaches.
The courtyard of The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida. (Photo Credit: Lacey Pfalz)
As I reflect on all we did there, I think my grandmother would’ve loved all of it. After all, she’d loved flowers (a passion which I’d inherited), art and history, and, of course, the beach.
Memorial travel isn’t easy. It may, like my own experience, come with some snags during the planning process, or will, unfortunately, have to be rescheduled or replanned years after you’d like it to be. When you’re finally there, you might find yourself remembering, and you might also find yourself emotional, grieving, once more, the one you’ve lost.
Yet it’s a healthy grief, and a healthy weight of emotion. Catharsis is what it’s called—a relief, and a completion. Remembering those we’ve loved and lost is a gift.
Our journey was over. The quest was won. We rest easy now, knowing my grandmother would be proud of what we’d done.
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