Almost a year ago, my siblings and I started talking about the idea of going on a trip to Italy together.  My sister, Heather, served her mission there and not only has she always wanted to go back, but she speaks Italian – definitely a bonus.  We talked for a while more, and finally decided on who would be going, all five of us Anderson girls, Cheryl’s husband, Scott, as well as my brother Preston and his two daughters. It was a big group, but it was going to be amazing.  

I immediately started reading Rick Steves travel books all about Italy, and all together we decided on our itinerary, which cities we would be staying in, and booking fabulous airbnbs for the trip. We were just about to buy advance tickets to museums and such when Corona hit, so we decided to hold off a bit. Then everyone’s but my plane tickets were canceled, and only my sisters, Holly and Heather, were planning on rebooking. We went from our large group, to a group of three, but it was fine.  We rebooked our lodging, the two of them bought new tickets and we prayed that we would be allowed to go, since the borders are still closed to Americans right now.

All the while, my Italy travel books from the library were sitting in my bedroom, waiting for me to pick them up again and keep planning.  But part of me just couldn’t let myself even think about getting excited until I knew for sure, and so I couldn’t read them anymore, and I couldn’t plan.  They sat there untouched, and I kept renewing them, just in case. By now, my sisters’ second round of tickets were canceled, but we were still holding out hope that we could possibly still go. However, yesterday was the day Kevin and I talked about the reality of my trip, and that even if they did open the borders in time, we would be required to do a two week mandatory quarantine, taking up our entire vacation. I was heartbroken, especially because it was just one more thing added to the long list of broken plans and canceled events since March. I took those wonderful Italy travel books, and as I turned them into the library, I felt like I was saying goodbye to a dream.

When I got up this morning, I did my usual Saturday morning walk through the neighborhood trails, and I listened to my audio book, which just happened to be a fabulous nonfiction book called “Second Suns,” all about two amazing doctors that were trying to rid the world unnecessary blindness.  The story was truly fascinating, but as I was taking my walk and listening, still feeling a bit sorry for myself, I reached a section of the book where one of the doctors was working at a clinic in Rwanda they were trying to get established.  The surgeon he was working with was a survivor of the holocaust not too many years before, losing eighteen close family members to the horror of that time. As they worked that day, prisoners were brought in to receive treatment, and Dr. Geoffrey Tabin was blown away by the fact that the other surgeon, in spite of the horror and loss he suffered from the hands of these prisoners,  selflessly performed a free procedure on them to restore their site.

Brought to tears as I listened to this, and other stories in the book during my walk, I couldn’t help but think that my disappointment over a canceled trip to Italy was such a small and insignificant thing in the grand scheme of things.  That I truly have so much to be grateful for – more things than I can even count, one of which was being born in a country where preventable blindness is just that, preventable and essentially nonexistent. Yes, we deal with disappointment and hard things in our lives, but we are also richly blessed.  The key is to find the blessings amidst the disappointment, and find joy amidst the trials.  Yes, I am still sad that my trip was canceled, but truthfully, I am more grateful that I live in a place and live a life where I was able to plan and even contemplate taking a dream trip to Italy.  It is all about perspective.