What can I say? When you travel together, you make memories together. Even when something goes wrong, you’ll look back on it with those who traveled with you and maybe even laugh. Even if you don’t, it’s a memory, and it was shared with someone you love.
I remember when my husband and I took our three children (at the time we only had three) to Costa Rica. Something went wrong – terribly wrong – when we had to change planes in Miami.
Since we had plenty of time to catch the next plane, and our children were aged 5, 3, and almost 2, we decided to wait and get off the plane last. We didn’t want to cause anyone a problem if they didn’t have the time we did. After all, it can be slow getting off a plane with young children.
We were able to manage our carry-on bags since we had some child-sized ones our two older children could pull to help us. But when we got off the plan and saw only an escalator going up, we had to stop and stare.
I didn’t want our young children trying to take bags up the escalator, and I knew the two younger ones would need help. No stairway, no elevator, just one escalator that was going up.
We were trying to decide how to handle this since we couldn’t leave our children alone on either side of the escalator. I would have to carry the youngest and hold onto the hand of the next youngest and hope the oldest could get up by copying me. That meant I wouldn’t have any free hands to help with the luggage, except the diaper bag I could throw over my shoulder.
Well, our son (the three-year-old) decided he could go up by himself and started to get on the escalator (without permission) and fell. He was so scared with those “teeth” moving. He kept trying to crawl back down and we could see the fear in his eyes.
I was holding the youngest, and Wayne had his hands full of luggage, but dropped it all. He tried to get him when someone upstairs saw what was happening and pushed the emergency stop button. We were so thankful for that person!
Anyway, we still had a problem with getting the children and the luggage all up, but the pilot had stepped off the plane and saw what happened and offered to help with some of our luggage. Another person for whom to be thankful.
Now I can look back on that and somewhat laugh, but my heart was beating so fast and I was a bit shaky for a while after that.
Believe me, that wasn’t the only thing that went wrong on that trip, that was only the first, but we are so glad we went. And yes, there were a lot of good things that happened, too. While the youngest doesn’t remember the trip at all, and the other two remember only a little bit, my husband and I will cherish that trip where we visited some dear friends who were missionaries in Costa Rica.
Even memories of things that go wrong are great to have!