It Wasn't Meant to be

By Paul Morrone, CFP®, CPA/PFS, MSA

As the old saying goes, everything happens for a reason. Sometimes you realize it almost immediately, sometimes it takes the benefit of hindsight to put the puzzle pieces together. This past week was an example of the former in our house. We had planned to go south to enjoy some warm weather during the wet and dreary winter we’ve been having for a long weekend with the kids. As anyone living in Florida will tell you, the weather has been less than ideal for the past few months and the beach/pool weather we are yearning for just wasn’t in the forecast. In lieu of dragging the kids and all their stuff down to Florida for a weekend of cool weather, we decided on a staycation instead.

It started out great. We took the kids to the CT science center and had the place virtually to ourselves. If you haven’t been, the science center in Hartford is really well done and was a perfect daytrip for Kyle and Ryan. We learned about the planets and space travel, sound and light, the human body and geography. They loved it. We were lucky, too, as one of the employees told us a large school group had previously been scheduled to come that day but cancelled at the last minute. It worked out perfectly in our favor and at one point we were the only people on the entire floor.

Jill and I got some time alone while the kids were at school and were able to enjoy lunch out without having to cut up chicken tenders and pick monster trucks or crayons off the floor. After some shopping and other errands, we scrambled back home to get Kyle off the bus. Oh how time flies when you’re having fun.

Things were looking up, until they weren’t. That night, Jill came down with the stomach bug – which wiped her out completely for two days. Shortly thereafter, it got me, too. To my knowledge, it was the first time I’ve ever had a stomach bug, and trust me, it was worse than I could have ever imagined. To make matters worse, Kyle came down with it, which meant we had to tend to him virtually all night. I’ll spare you the gory details, but it is not fun to take care of a child with a stomach illness when you, yourself, are doing everything in your power to keep food down. I’m hesitant to even write that Ryan is still OK, but only time will tell. 

Given the timeline of events, it would have been absolutely miserable to be anywhere other than in the comfort of our home. We didn’t miss the mark entirely, however, as the whole goal of the trip that never happened was to spend some quality time as a family. While going to the science center and doing family movie night may not have been as exciting as swimming in the ocean, maybe we didn’t miss the mark completely. From that standpoint – mission accomplished!

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