From B-day trip to $2,000 change to Celebration of Life: the joy we needed

[angryduck71]

Hello, there! My son, David, 18, and I planned a summer trip for my birthday in July; he is a soon-to-be sophomore at University of Tulsa. The best kid ever. We decided to do a couple days at Disney and several days at Universal. I will post the same introduction on both the Disney and Universal trip report site and then the specifics of each world on their respective sites.

A warning -- some of this is terribly sad, but truly, the joy this trip brought us when it was so needed cannot be exaggerated. And, I hope some of our journey will help some of you.

As I said, we had first decided to go celebrate my birthday during a trip in July. But, on Memorial Day, my son came back from his Grandma Ruth's (my ex's mom) and asked, "um... which days will we be gone again?" I said July 21-July 28. He said, "oh.... Grandma Ruth was planning a family reunion for the weekend in the middle of that..." Oh no! Apparently she had told my son about this but during his finals, so he did not put two and two together. She also let my ex know (and, I had told him about our trip so we could coordinate when David could visit him). I tried to change it to earlier in July, but certain things sold out and it was more expensive. Ruth offered to pay for any uncharges, but it was more that things we were set on doing (like the non-private EPIC VIP tour). I really adore Ruth, so I then started looking at August instead... and saw that most things were less expensive then. So, I started trying to rebook things. As I was doing so, my ex texted me, "I will pay you $2,000 for uncharges and inconvenience if you change things..." I chuckled and told David things were actually less expensive and he said, "well, if anything is MORE, CHARGE HIM!" Before I could finish, my sent the $2,000 via venmo. Well, then, this trip was going to get a bit of an upgrade......... I moved it from July 21-28 to August 11-18. And, it turned out, it was a good thing I did....

I was horrible sick the day we were originally set to depart. Then, my mom fell the day after. I will spare everyone the horrendous details, but this led to her last illness. She passed away shortly before we were to depart (August 9). My son and I talked and we both agreed we wanted to get away from everything and go on our trip and bond and share my mom's love of Disney and Universal, so we did... and we had an absolutely amazing and healing journey. I'm sharing a picture of my mom with my son and our airport pic before we were off.... (and eventually I will figure out again how to not make my pics be sideways....)

 

[smrice95]

I have gone to Disney for healing before. Once was after my husband (who was 39 at the time) was sick and needed major surgery. I was keeping our young kids lives as normal as possible, while trying to keep him grounded and me praying. Everything went great, except for when he got home and did too much and began convulsing - I called 911 and this was worse than the surgery. After months of healing, he was given the clearance he could go and ride rides. I asked every doctor that we saw to be sure everyone agreed. While we were there, I broke down twice. It was me letting out my nerves and dealing with everything because I now was able to. I am glad you and your son went. Disney is a lot of fun, but it brings so much more to us. I hope this trip brought you peace and the two of you recalled great memories of your mom that left you smiling and tears of happiness.