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This last month we took our babies to Disneyland. If I’m being fully honest, it was just as much my gift as it was theirs because it will forever and always be my happy place and where some of my best and hardest memories are. With a four-year-old and a 20-month-old, every amazing and joyful thing happened along with the “oh no!” moments included. The moments of my son having a full-on meltdown on The Storybook Canal boats where I had no escape, him chucking his little sneaker into the water, and quite a few more were tempered by the smiles and laughs at seeing Mickey, Minnie, Daisy, Donald, Goofy and all our favorite characters, the squeals of delight on Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree and moments of peaceful meals and cocktails for mom and dad.
It was our son’s first trip, our daughter’s second (well
third if you count when I was just pregnant with her), and I can’t even
begin to count the times visiting. It was my escape from reality when I
lived in So Cal. My mom and I would often play hooky and go for the day
until we got tired or the park got busy. So many mundane days turned
into magic just by us being kids at heart. But it has left me with so
many ghosts. I see Eeyore and my heart aches because he was her
favorite. We dine at Carthay Circle and I look for her favorites. We
ride on Soaring of The World and I vividly remembered how my very much
afraid of flying mother relished flying over California when we went. So
many ghosts.
Before she passed, my husband and I had talked about moving
back to my home in NC. Being her only child and wanting to be a part of
her grandchildren’s lives, she always intended to follow where we moved.
But she confided in me once she hoped we’d not decide on NC because it
carried too many ghosts for her. Our past had been complicated and
challenging there. I understood that more than any because I had lived
it with her. But I had visited a few times since we had moved and it had
changed. She shared that it was almost worse because the ghosts were
still there but everything would be foreign. She was afraid the ghosts
would be too strong.
I never fully understood what she meant until I lost her and
visited Disneyland for the first time after she passed. Her ghost was
everywhere, no place untouched in either park. But the one thing about
Disney, it’s never stagnant and is constantly evolving. It hurt more to
see something we loved no longer exist but the memory, the ghost of it
still burned hard in my heart and in my mind. When we took my daughter
just before the Covid shutdown, I thought she was once again right. The
ghosts of what we had experienced were strong but the ghosts of our
dreams of taking her together were stronger still.
But I realized something after this last trip… the ghosts
don’t have to be heavy. No, I will never not have them. I will forever
visit Disneyland and think of my mother. But as I watched my daughter
this time as we both rode Soaring Over the World, watched her delight
and got to share her grandmother with her, that I could remove the
chains that the ghosts carried, and lighten the load I felt. As I
watched my son's delight at the same characters she loved, I could once
again take joy in seeing them. As I watched both their intensity on
Astroblasters and their wonder on It's A Small World, I realized her
ghosts were just the foreshadowing of what it would be with my own
babies.
Disneyland won’t be the same. But I can make new memories and
in doing so I can honor our memories, and our dreams and I can use them
to help my babies know her.
Below are photos of one of the trips with my mom and our recent trip.
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