In Ireland

Little sweetheart, it was this week, eight years ago, that we went on our trip to Ireland together.

Although I hadn't been there since 2001, it was one of the first things you and I talked about when we met - my travels there and how very much you wanted to go with me sometime.

After my mom unexpectedly passed away in May of that same year, I knew even more than I had before that I needed to be with you as much as possible and that even though you were already so good at seizing the moment and doing things NOW, not waiting for some mythical "someday", that we needed to plan a trip there.

You were going to be in France in late September and I had to go to London around the same time, so we settled on October. We traveled with my friends Kris & Joy, who had been with me on my previous visits to the emerald isle, and we rented a little cottage in Kilcrohane, a small village at the end of the Sheep's Head Peninsula, a place we'd come to love all those years ago.

You and I went for long walks, one epic one all the way out to and around the lighthouse and another past Doneen pier when a little Jack Russell dog suddenly appeared and ran a few feet ahead of us, seemingly taking us on a tour, for nearly an hour.

I'm so grateful that I have so many wonderful pictures of you on that trip, almost 300, I think. Maybe I'll post a few of them here over the next few days, little sweetheart, and tell a little story.

I'm so very glad we had that trip together, just as you so wanted. It's hard not to feel the sadness begin to rise in my chest at the thought of how much you loved it and had spoken of new plans to return - there was a lovely old man there, Johnny, who had taken such a shine to you, and we had planned to return in the spring when it happened to be his birthday. So many of the village folks that got to meet you were taken with you and your mane of red hair ("where are all the redheads?", you asked one of the locals in the pub, I recall, and he said "they're all in Scotland, lass.").

This picture is one from that day when the little dog led us around the twists and turns of the path down to Doneen pier. May you lead me even now through my own arduous travels and bring me safely home again to your side in the Forever. With all my love...