Buckled In

A Mother-Daughter adventure to the heart of D.C.

We often think of travel as a way to create memories for the future, but sometimes, it becomes a sanctuary for the past. This week, I’m looking back at a trip to D.C. that feels like both a lifetime ago and yesterday—the story of a mother and daughter, a journey to the heart of the capital, and a reminder of why we hold onto these moments when the person we shared them with is no longer here to hold them with us.

Today my parents would have been married fifty-six years.

Two days before the 250th birthday of America.

Mama would have loved that coincidence. She loved God, country, and her family. She would have reveled in every celebration had she lived to see it.

“For the first thirty minutes of this flight, passengers must remain seated or you will be detained and the plane turned around and grounded at our starting destination,” came over the cabin speaker.

Mama gripped my hand tightly.

We had traveled together many times before, mostly when I was a young student and she was our chaperone. Train ride to Chattanooga. New York City. Philadelphia. Amish Country. Charleston. Savannah. Florida Beaches. But this was different. It was a milestone birthday for me, my 30th, and I was able to finance this entire trip as a gift to both of us. It was the season of our lives when our relationship quietly changed. We were still mother and daughter, but we had also become friends. We had learned to enjoy each other exactly as we were, without trying to change one another. Now I realize what a rare gift that is.

It was shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Flights into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport were under heightened security. We were told there was a Federal Marshal aboard, though no one would say where they were seated.

I forgot my Dramamine!

When we were both younger, we talked about taking trips together—flights, hotel stays, the kind of plans you make when time still feels abundant. We talked about going somewhere new every year.

This trip to D.C. is etched in my memory. At the time, she was the same age that I am now, give or take a year. How did it become distant so fast?

We rode the Metro everywhere, marveling at the National Air and Space Museum. We wandered Georgetown without much agenda. We sat for a while on the Capitol steps while a street drummer filled our afternoon with music. Mama couldn't resist. She laughed, danced a little, and clapped along. We observed the action at the beautiful Union Station. Oohed and ahed over the cherry blossoms in bloom. We wound down from the day over a glass of wine in our Arlington hotel lobby bar before bed.

She understood my joy that photographs are allowed at the National Gallery of Art. She captured the photo of me standing beside one of my favorite paintings. We took a photo together next to FDR’s statue. Right now, almost every memory of Mama carries tears with it.

We walked together making memories.

I remember when she could drive and would visit my busy neighborhood. Brunch and shopping were guaranteed to be on the itinerary, even if it was just aimlessly wandering aisle after aisle at a big-box retail shoe store without making a single purchase. I would take her by my latest favorite thrift spot. I would giggle as she corrected my pronunciation of the longstanding French brand, Etienne Aigner, that many stateside pronounce “Agner.” Mama was quick to point out, it’s “Ah-nyayyy” with a pat on my hand and a giggle.

The trips ended. The shopping days ended. Even her grip on my hand would eventually loosen. I did not understand then how much of that ordinary joy I would one day catalogue in memory and that one day this library of memories would be all that I had to hold onto, when she would no longer reach for my hand. No more shared destinations.

Grief is a destination I never asked to visit, and yet, it is the one that has taught me the most about the durability of love. While the physical maps of our shared lives have been folded away, the itinerary of who she was—her curiosity, her fun spirit, her laughter—is now written into the fabric of my own days. I will still travel, still explore, and still seek the beauty in every museum hall and city street (I hope).

I used to think the purpose of travel was to discover new places. Now I know another purpose. Sometimes we travel so that years later, when someone we love is gone, we have one more landscape where we can still walk beside them. I go on, not in spite of her absence, but because of her presence, tucked safely and permanently into the quiet corners of my heart.

Spring cherry blossoms on the D.C. National Mall.

Thank you for giving me the space to hold these memories in the light. Your support makes the journey of writing—and the journey of healing—a little less lonely. Please feel free to share a memory of your loved one in the comments.