The Opportunity of A Lifetime

The title?  Yeah, we'll consider that a loose use of the phrase.  Is it an opportunity of a lifetime?  For someone in my family, at this point in our lives? Yes.  For some other people I know? No, it's merely a drop in the bucket of the things that they currently get to do, or that they've been doing since they were just a child.

After my mom left my dad when I was 5 and they worked through their "issues" (i.e. visitation and all that crap), we got to spend three weeks out of our summer vacation each year with him.  I can only remember once where my mom actually accompanied us on the trip, her and my grandma drove us from Pennsylvania to Florida and dropped us off with my dad, then they did their own vacation thing.  Every other time, we were the unattended kids that the flight attendants hated and wanted nothing more than to deliver us to our destination and move on.  I don't remember really having any feelings toward flying, but then again, that's part of my life that has been conveniently blocked out and never to be seen again.  We did it for years, until finally we were old enough to say we didn't want to go anymore because we'd rather hang out with our friends all summer long.  Actually, for me, it was more that some dirty little secrets had spilled out of the closet about how my dad treated my mom back in the day and I no longer wished to have anything to do with a monster like that.

After those years I don't think I flew again until I was about 14.  My mom and my soon to be step-dad took us on our first "real" family vacation.  They took us to Phoenix, where I fell in love with the desert.  We spent time on Lake Powell in Utah and got to see the Grand Canyon on our way to Las Vegas for the first time.  For the first time in our lives, me and my sisters were getting to see things other than Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida.  Each year when we went out was more fun than the last and I was grateful that finally, after all of my mom's struggles she had met someone who could support her and together they could make a great life for us.  She had worked far too many years at too many jobs to keep on that track forever.

After making two babies, returning to college and deciding to try and forge some type of relationship with my dad, I started taking the boys on vacation when I had Spring Break from my schooling.  The first year my half-sister and I went down because she was looking for a job and a place to live down there.  Brandon wasn't very old, and I was pregnant with Gavin at the time.

This is my dad and Brandon before all the brain tumor stuff.  The first time he met him actually....

 A couple of years later-Brandon

That same year, Gavin

No matter who we went with, we always drove.  Hell, I was a broke ass college student trying to take my kids away for awhile for some fun.  In 2002 I could finally afford to fly.  My step-dad and I drove my car down, so that he could pickup his mother and drive her back to Ohio.  He dropped me & the boys off at my dad's house and we were finally on vacation. When it was time to come home, the boys were excited to get on an airplane for the first time.  I wasn't so excited.  Two days earlier I had come down with cooties that would be diagnosed when I got home as; strep throat, pink eye in both eyes and ear infections in both ears.  Ugh.

Needless to say, I was incapacitated pretty much the entire flight.  Our flight had to be diverted to Atlanta because of a bomb scare in Cincinnati.  I was so sick I could hardly figure out how to get us re-booked onto another flight.  Luckily an agent at the Southwest counter saw how sick I was and helped me & the kids to our new gate and on the plane.  Even with the re-book, the flight was empty.  I laid down across my row and promptly passed out.  My kids sat in the row directly across me mesmerized with everything outside of the window.   We managed to make it home in one piece thanks to some flight attendants who wanted to play with the little kids the entire flight.

After that trip, we've only returned to Florida as a family twice and neither of those times was to have family vacation with my dad.  The whole brain tumor thing happened and I didn't want my kids around him.  Truthfully with everything that has happened over the last few years, week long vacations and spending that kind of money were the last things on my mind.  Maybe now that things are starting to look up, we'll be able to do those kinds of things again.  Maybe....

The opportunity I was speaking of in the title?  Gavin has the chance to go to Spain for 10 days this summer touring and playing in a soccer tournament.  Yeah, he's that good at 13.  I'm conflicted though.  A) It's a lot of money.  I can manage it, with the help of my parents, but the cost will probably set me back again temporarily.  B) Gavin is a momma's boy.  There is NO WAY both of us can go, but I know he is hesitant about traveling alone.  Hesitant isn't even the word, terrified would be more accurate.  C) Actually it's not alone.  He will be well chaperoned, with people he knows, so I'm not really concerned there....  

I'm trying to let go of some issues I have with this whole thing, I really am.  But ugh.  Madrid for 10 days?  Yeah, this is something he may not ever get the opportunity to do again.  It'll look great for college prospects in a few years and all but......  Damn, Spain?  I don't know.  Personally, I've read too many books about people getting kidnapped in international territory and not making it home.  That's why I've never been out of the country.  Lame, I know.  Let's hear what you guys have to say about all this......