Lisha Cassibo has been writing for the Uxbridge Cosmos for two years, both as a freelancer and as a columnist. She has also written for several parenting magazines both here in Canada and for English publications in Switzerland. She graduated from Carleton University with an honours degree in Journalism and English Literature. She lives with her family in Sunderland.
Wishes do come true
Well, it's done. I have made a dead man very happy. I hope.
My little family and I just got back from a whirlwind trip to Walt Disney World. We left after work on a Friday, arrived there on Saturday after driving straight the way through, regrouped and slept and swam on the Sunday, and donned our mouse ears on the Monday. I was quite all Disney'd out by Thursday at quarter to one in the morning when we finally left the Magic Kingdom. I think even the girls were all Disney'd out, and that's really saying something. But Disney promises to make wishes come true, make memories happen, blah blah blah. And I think that's what we did, thanks to my dad.
I'm not being morbid, my father really did play a huge part in our hollies, and I think he's finally at peace. Not that I have any evidence that he wasn't otherwise.
When my paternal grandfather was alive, he loved to save his pennies and take the whole family on holidays. I was last in Disney World in 1982, right when Epcot was being built, when Grandpa took me, my brother, Mom, Dad, and my uncle and his then-girlfriend, and my grandma, of course, for a grand two-week holiday to Florida. We had a wonderful time, and it was fun showing my girls some of the spots that we have seen in slides and pictures from that trip.
“Hey Mom, that's the rhino that Poppa loved, poking that man's bum!” my youngest exclaimed when we went on a particular safari ride. I had told them about how much my dad had loved that ride, and we had a picture of that particular scene. When my grandfather passed away, he had a house safe that contained money that my dad knew was being saved for another family holiday, albeit my grandmother and uncle had long since passed away. Dad informed us (my brother and I) that he was going to add to the funds and try to take his granddaughters on a holiday just like the one we had been on. Eleven people take awhile to save up for, so the safe sat in my parents' basement and slowly accumulated funds.
My father died before he could see his dream become a reality, and in the aftermath of that, my brother and I focused on my mom and her declining health. The safe sat. My mom passed away only three months after my dad, and on the afternoon she died, my husband, my brother, his wife and myself sat in the living room of the house we had grown up in and talked about what the heck to do with everything. Sounds horrible, putting it like that, but anyone who's ever been through it knows that we weren't being greedy, just shocked and realistic. We knew that the safe sat downstairs, and we talked briefly about its contents, and what we would do with them. We chatted for a little while about how great it would be to have Dad's dream come true and go to Florida, the nine of us. Well, for reasons that best belong to my brother, he and his family went on their own later on that same year. And a couple of times after that. Now, Dad's money didn't fund all three trips, but it did help on the first one, at least, so I guess he knew that half the dream had come true, and I hope he was okay with the fact that we weren't all together.
My family had a different agenda, but the money never got forgotten about, and we finally bit the bullet late last year and decided we were going to go, no matter what. Two girls could celebrate their birthdays in the week that we were there (one on Tuesday, one on Thursday) and we would make a giant celebration of it.
And celebrate we did. We'd never taken a family holiday like it, and we princessed and Mickeyed and walked until we all thought we'd fall over. Autographs galore. Dinner with the princesses. Three kids being shuffled off to wait while Mom and Dad ride the thrill rides. Good times indeed.
I cried when I awoke on Friday morning remembering a dream I had just finished about my parents. They looked good. They looked healthy. They looked like they knew where I was, and what I had done, and they were satisfied. Never mind that my dad was wearing a pilot's uniform (I'm not sure where that came from), but the hug he gave me in my dream was real. The joy on my mom's face was real. And in those few moments after my dream but before I opened my eyes, I tried desperately to thank them, to tell them in words what a wonderful gift they had given us. I don't think they heard me, but I hope they know. We will never take another trip like that one, and I really do hope that we made some memories that the girls will take with them forever.
Thank you, Dad, for our fabulous holiday. You were there every second, both of you. And just so you know, the jungle safari ride hasn't changed a jot since you saw it last. Who knows, maybe you see it every day. Enjoy.
