A Trip 6 Years in the Making

I’m sitting here staring a luggage thinking in less than 42 hours we will be on a plane heading to Hawaii!  I keep pinching myself to make sure this is real.  So far all the pinches hurt, so it must be happening!   A trip like this has been a dream of mine for what seems like forever.

With all the anticipation and excitement I have, I am also in that frantic mode of crossing all the “t’s” and dotting all those “I’s” to make sure we have everything we could possibly need for this vacation.  Along with that, I have read travel blogs & magazines, studied maps for airports, and printed off our itinerary just in case.  
The checklist has been printed, and the packing is down to throwing the toiletries into the carry-on.  We have all the essentials, clothes, medical devices, first aid kit, and I’m sure a few extras in there.  We started with high hopes of only taking a carry on and a personal item each in order to save money on luggage fees, but it proved to be quite the challenge.  We have since moved on to adding one checked bag and a surfboard that is due for spending some time in the salt water!
While my excitement is building, I see my husband getting more and more anxious.  With frequent conversations to assure him of the details, I can see him feeling a little more at ease.  I know once we get there, he will enjoy it, but for now, it’s one day at a time.  From my husband’s deployment to Iraq he suffers from PTSD, a TBI, and a variety of physical issues that keep him from getting out of the house, let alone traveling by plane.

So how did this trip to Hawaii come about?  I sometimes wonder, do you even need a reason to go to Hawaii?  Before I would just say go, but it’s not that simple and not that easy for us.

This trip to Hawaii was a honeymoon promised to me over six years ago when we were married.  My husband’s mother was born in Hawaii, and he has family there to this day.  Naturally, he spent many summers soaking up the Hawaiian sunshine.  Out of his love for the islands, when we got married, he told me he wanted to take me there for our honeymoon.  The idea sounded great to him, and of course to me too, but the reality of getting on a plane and going to Hawaii created a lot of anxiety for my husband, and we never went.
Earlier this year we received a call from my father-in-law asking us to join them in Hawaii for their 40th wedding anniversary.  My husband’s response was, “I think Tiffany’s face says yes.”  Apparently, I had a HUGE smile on my face.  I couldn’t believe we would be invited to participate in such a wonderful milestone for my husband’s parents, and to do it in Hawaii was the icing on the cake!
Over the last few months, there have been moments where we weren’t sure we were truly going to make it to Hawaii, but I sit here still staring at that luggage and the shrinking to-do list to tell you we are heading out on a jet plane in less than 41 hours!

-Tiffany S. -Heroes Thanking Heroes Team Lead