One of my favorite memories is of a family trip to Florida with my older sister, her two children, and my youngest baby brother. This is an event that sticks in my memory for several reasons. But I always get a warm fuzzy feeling when I remember the afternoon we spent at Disney World in the middle of a torrential downpour, a typical mid-afternoon event in middle Florida, maybe in all of Florida.
We first tried to wait the storm out in a gift shop, looking at Mickey Mouse this and Disney Princess that, but soon realized this was going to be a soaker! Reluctant to give up our entire afternoon to what to us was a little rainfall after such a long trip; we bought bright yellow Mickey Mouse rain ponchos. You should have seen us, what a troop, running from store to restaurant to indoor attractions in our bright yellow slickers. We were soaked from the knees down, but couldn’t care less. We were so happy to be together making new memories, the rain just added to the adventure.
But let me go back to the beginning of my story. Two years earlier my older sister and her husband had purchased a time share on Lake Bryant, just a few minute’s drive from Disney World. It was a beautiful location and a warm and welcoming community. I had not been there before this trip, as I missed their wedding, but I remember looking at photos from the wedding and thinking what a great place to stay for Disney World convenience and just for its own charm and amenities.
My older sister and her husband were so excited when they found Bryant’s Cove that they couldn’t wait to own a piece of it and decided, in addition to being owners, this was where they wanted to get married; and so they did. They had a lovely but simple sunset ceremony and reception in the courtyard gazebo with the lake and setting sun as their backdrop. The pictures were beautiful and showed a couple so in love and my sister’s children so happy.
What seemed like a short year later, my sister and her husband were back at their timeshare with their children to celebrate their one year anniversary, the paper anniversary my sister said; they had gotten favorite magazines and books for each other as gifts. While getting ready to go out to dinner on the eve of their anniversary, my sister’s husband fell to the floor behind the door in the bathroom. He was having a heart attack. A short while later he passed away in the hospital.
When she called my parents in New York from the hospital in Florida, we were shocked and panicked; news spread quickly to family from New York to Tennessee to Texas. We all worried over what we could do to help. How quickly could we get there to be with her? How would we make arrangements? What arrangements did we need to make? What could we do?
My sister is the strongest woman I know. Not wanting to stay in Florida by herself grieving any longer than necessary, she asked us to all stay put. She would figure out what needed to be done and do it. My sister spent the next day and half dealing with her grief and the children’s grief; although they had only been married for a year, they had been together for as long as my niece was old, and he had been the man they knew as dad; and making arrangements for something no one should have to face, alone.
In the end, she was too distressed to drive so she booked the Amtrak Car Train for her car and seats for her and the children, and was able to have her husband’s body transported back to New York for services and burial.
This brings me to the reason we were at Disney World. It was a year later and my sister had asked my brother and me if we would go with her to help her get past her husband’s death and remember the good times they had shared there and to make some new memories on the way.
Several years later she did eventually sell the timeshare. And she has since found a new love and remarried. I know, though, that our journey to Bryant Lake that summer served its purpose and left a lasting and happy memory for all of us. We continue to find old photos and share stories of that trip even now, twenty-some-odd years later. Because of this, it was hands-down, one of the best vacations I have had.
(By: Karen Godfrey, reprinted with permission)