gulf shores plantation

when is a trip to the beach not just a trip to the beach?

this time two years ago, my family and i took a vacation to gulf shores. where we were going to stay was never in question. it was always going to be gulf shores plantation. one of the many traditions we revived and continued while i was on staff at humc for over six years was the senior high/college-age beach trip that closed out our youth weeks. while the junior high group was shuttled off and away (with a beautiful and rotating crew of adult chaperones) to atlanta for a six flags/white water weekend, the elders of our group took to the beach. before we took to the beach, though, we took to gulf shores plantation.

as condos go, i don't guess that the plantation is the most expensive you can find in gulf shores, but far too many memories were made over the years that, if left up to me, we will never consider any other place. why would we when every single trip felt like such a success? the details of those memories, actually, sound like a fun, late summer series that would be worth my time here on HACATLKAM, so i'll leave them be for the time being. as they relate to today's post, all that matters is that the trips we took from 2000-2004 made our family destination decision easy as pie in the summer of 2009.

"the best laid plans"...

the unplanned part about our family vacation in the summer of 2009 is well-documented in these parts. three weeks before we were to leave, in the girls bathroom after a softball game, i peed blood. over the next couple of weeks, we found out that blood wasn't caused by a kidney stone or a urinary tract infection. the blood was being caused by a massive fucking tumor that had been growing inside my right kidney for god knows how long.

many of the pictures that will occasionally flash across our screen saver at home tell a very eery story of that family trip to the beach. i am pretty sure we had a good time. i can remember several things from the week, a couple names of the restaurants we visited, but most of the week is a blur. several pictures that sarah snapped show me looking off into the distance...somewhere, even if that distance was no farther than the wall behind the condo television. it wasn't that i didn't try to have a good time. quite the contrary, i tried really fucking hard, but i couldn't stop thinking about what the tumor meant. was i dying? or was my doctor right when he predicted that i was going to be okay?

it wasn't confirmed cancer until the day after my surgery, after they were able to pull the jacked up organ out of a hole just next to my belly button, slice the jacked up organ open and play around with the tumor. it was that same day and during the same trip to my room that my urologist told me to "celebrate". the cancer was completely contained within the jacked up organ. "you're gonna be really fucking sore for a while, bro, but you are going to be fine." or something like that. 18 long, hard months later, i finally owned that news.

last summer, sarah and i celebrated my cancer(free)-versary with a trip to gatlinburg that, while fun in moments and necessary for the emotional healing, was equal parts haunted. my mind had yet to catch up with my body in the recovery process.

just over a month ago, we went to "the happiest place on earth" only to realize it wasn't. what it was, though, was the first time in close to two years that our family felt whole again, the first time in two years that cancer didn't stain our recall, the first time in two years cancer didn't retard and forecast our future for us.

my mind had finally caught up.

flash back to the future and forward to this weekend.

we are lucky to have friends that care about us and our girls. we are lucky and we'll never be able to properly say "thank you" for their kindness. we are lucky in that they would never expect a "thank you" in the first place.

two of our closest friends have invited us to join them on their own trip down memory lane, to join them at the plantation this weekend. how could we say no?

we couldn't. and we didn't.

thursday evening, we'll head down to the beach for a long weekend that will be much more than just a trip to the beach.

it will be a reminder of the years that i found myself at huffman.

it will be a reminder of how much fun we used to have.

it will be a reminder of how unfortunately forgettable our trip in july of 2009 was.

it will be a reminder of the 18 months of tests and scans, paranoia and anxiety and helplessness that followed my surgery.

it will have been six months removed from the clean scan in january, six months away from the next.

it will be a reminder that life goes on. it just has to. or it will without you.

it will be our last trip with only two baby girls in tow.

it will be many things, in and of itself.

it will be memorable in newer, older, and wiser ways.

it will be...

we can't wait.