"Wish You Were Here"

 

If it is said that a woman will marry a man who is like her Father, Then this could not be more true than in my marriage. In the sixteen years under my Father's care, only a single vacation was ever taken. In the 32 years of my marriage, I have only taken one vacation 32 times!

I have traveled the exact same roads to Northern Michigan, to the exact same destination nearly all of my life. There isn't a Welcome Center along the way that we do not stop at to collect brochures to use in planning the next year's exact vacation. In all these years they have never changed.

When I ask my husband why it is that he can't use the previous year's brochures, his reply is always the same, "There might be something new!" May I tell you if there is something new, I haven't seen it in the last 32 years! Everything is exactly as I found it the year before.

Each year as the spring sun draws closer to the earth and vacation days near, I will say to my husband, "But I just want to go to the beach. I want to go to Florida!" My husband's reply is exactly the same year after year, "But I do take you to the beach. Lake Michigan!"

Before you should jump on my "Florida or Bust" bandwagon and think unkind things of my husband who takes me on exactly the same vacation for 32 years, please know that at each destination we rest our travel weary bodies, we find the love of a family member who I would not know so well had I not visited them every year for 32 years.