My wife and I had been planning a trip to London and Amsterdam for late January. When dad fell, those plans had to be cancelled. I was able to cancel the hotels and the train tickets with no problem, but had to get cash credit for our flights. After Dad recovered and moved back home, and once we had had time have a memorial and my wife and I had some time to decompress from the experience ourselves, we decided to revisit a trip to Europe. We were having trouble finding tickets for less than the credit that we had been given, but one destination turned out to actually be even cheaper than what we had banked: Dublin.

When I was one year old, my father - who was working for Burlington Industries at the time - got the opportunity to go to Limerick Ireland for what was supposed to be one year in order to help provide tech support for new software that their factories around the country were using. One year turned into two, and then two became five. I was one when we left, and turned six the summer we returned. I spent two years in Irish schools and then started the first grade in the Greensboro, North Carolina, where I grew up going to the same school system through high school, went to the local UNC campus for undergrad, and where my father continues to live today.

I decided that more than doing something new and different for myself this year, I would appreciate setting foot on the island again, laying eyes on some familiar faces and places, and sharing that with my wife, for whom it would be a new and exciting experience. So we used our credit to book those tickets to Dublin via JFK, and then back via Atlanta. We flew to Dublin, rented a car, and spent two nights in Dublin, two in Cork (where I had studied for a semester my sophomore year), two in Galway (at the nicest place we've ever stayed), and then Dublin for two more nights. On our drives between destinations, we saw a lot of countryside and stopped in some fun places along the way, like Waterford, the Cliffs of Moher, Limerick, and Athlone. (I'll write something separately about that trip. It was wonderful.) While there, I had the chance to reconnect with an old neighbor and meet his wife, as well as meet up with two of mom and dad's best friends (and dad's old coworker) for coffee and brunch in Dublin. It was another chance to feel closer to my mother again by becoming closer to those who loved her.