Flying out of Singapore for a supposedly leisure trip for
the first time without Jenny was, as I had half-expected, turned out to be disheartening and overall, a morose
experience.
Over our 30 years of marriage life together, I have lost
count of the number of oversea trips we had taken together. Jenny loves
travelling and I discovered this in our early years together, to my initial
disconcernment, while we were hatching our wedding plans. Like most young couples starting out, we were
hard-pressed to put together a decent wedding package, with all the standard
frills- 8 course chinese dinner, video and photoshoot coverage, etc, which while
we had kept simple enough, had still put considerable strain on our limited
shoestring budget. With whatever meagre savings left in our bank accounts could
we afford the luxury of a far flung and expensive honeymoon? But Jenny was
insistent. “You only get married once”, she reminded me. And to which I could
not disagree.
Her dream of the perfect wedding would be incomplete without
us escaping to some faraway country, like a trip to Europe, where she was
hoping to visit her close friend who had settled in Zurich and also to England.
The latter suggestion arose from my own doing, thanks to my frequent sharing of how beautiful
and picturesque the English countryside would unfold itself on a self-drive
holiday, having experienced this in a previous company trip. So, extravagant as
it was, we threw caution to the wind and imprudently splurged our remaining
savings on a two-week trip to England, travelling on a rented car and then to
Zurich and sightseeing by train through Austria.
From then, you could say that her love for travelling had me
hopelessly smitten in similar fashion. When
our kids arrived, the year-end vacation trips would include each and every one of
them – none was left behind nor considered too young to travel. Our oversea adventures, always on
self-planned itinerary on rented cars,
were yearly highlights which the entire clan would look forward to. We found
ways of flying to several North American destinations – San Francisco, Seattle,
Orlando, Colorado, LA, Vancouver and so on for exotic winter holidays on cheap
flight tickets, thanks to Jen’s sister who works for an American airline.
So for this instance, travelling out for the first time on a
non-working trip without her, feels surreal and incomplete. The transit area at
the airport, with all its colourful shopping outlets, bustling with eager
travellers did not bring in the same exciting feel as in past vacations. I
could still picture her in our midst, lugging her usual haversack which she
uses only on trips abroad, looking relaxed and contented and quietly surveying
the duty-free shops while keeping an eye on the children to be sure that all
would be on time for boarding. But she is not there and I was already feeling weary
even before departure.
I suppose looking back, we have enjoyed enough of wonderful holidays
together to provide a life-time of memories to cherish. At this point I just
have to accept it that such good times, like many other splendours in life
cannot always last forever. My travelling
days will from now onwards be few and far in between, not least that with
retirement looming, I need to be more prudent with my spending but that now, without
that special someone to share the experience with, I will struggle to find the reason
to travel. There is a lengthy bucket list of places that Jen and I will want to
visit and I suppose before age takes its toll on health and mobility, I could find
myself making the trip to get to some of them. I will not be travelling alone
as surely she will be right there in my heart everywhere I go.
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