Road Trip

They say that variety is the spice of life, and there may be some truth in that slightly overused quotation. Something a little different can often have a positive impact so it was with plenty of excitement but also a little trepidation that we set out on a road trip on Friday.

With just the two of us in the car we drove up (or should that be across?) country towards the Welsh border, along motorways, A roads and plenty of little country lanes full of puddles and winter mud. The car was filthy by the time we arrived but the sun shone and the countryside looked green and the bare trees stood out against the deep blue sky. We passed fields of cattle and sheep and row upon row of fruit trees waiting for spring to arrive to bring them to life.

From the moment we set out, with our daughter, her partner and a friend in the other car, it was almost adventure-like. We had a break at a motorway service station and even raced a little once we left coffee, bacon rolls and Burger King chips behind, to see who could get to the hotel first.

We won.

But the really good thing about Friday was the reason for our adventure. We were going to a funeral. The funeral of someone who had just died from cancer.

Let me explain.

Funerals can be pretty emotional events. This was the funeral of someone close, but not too close, to our immediate family. He had been suffering from cancer for a while, but was given just months to live at the end of last summer. Sadly, after an emotional Christmas, he passed away in the first few days of the new year.

I am sure that this hit my wife quite badly.

So when I say that this was a good thing, what I mean is that we had to face some cancer related reality, but in a place where there was company and no time to overly dwell on personal feelings or worries. It was sad. People cried, including my wife. But she offered support and sympathy to the wife of the bereaved and got to chat to a lot of people, some of whom she had not seen in years and some she was meeting for the first time. And what could have been difficult became a mixture of learning (what they did which she would not want to do when / if it happened to her) and a "pleasant in the circumstances" social event.

She even got to meet someone who had been through two separate bouts of cancer and was living a fantastically positive and happy life herself. I think that reminder really helped.

There was plenty of talk in the car on the journey home, but positive comments and thoughts rather than the sort of thing I was fearing. She was happy in discussing the sad situation but avoided some of the usual pitfalls that we seem to experience at home.

In fact the only difficulties we had were with her navigation and my driving!

So there were positives all over the place which is a great thing for me to be writing today. Being outdoors, even if it was mostly in a car, gave us that connection with nature which seems to improve moods almost without fail. And the idea of a simple adventure like a road trip with friends and family offered up some childlike fun which was welcomed by all. The biggest positive however was that a weekend of sadness, and in particular cancer-related sadness, was met with a positive and realistic response rather than a nudge into a downward spiral of introspection and worry.

I think we need to run away from life and have fun like this more often.