Wayfinding

Study abroad, late 90s edition: paper maps, bootcut denim, no international data plan and Alison Krauss on repeat.

I left London because I was in love.

I was so young. Michael proposed as soon as I stepped off the plane following my study abroad summer in college, and I said yes because of course I did. At that moment, I could not have guessed it would be nearly thirty years before I came back.

London taught me I could find my way. I first went as a junior at Michigan State University, almost on a whim. I saw a study abroad sign and realized I could take summer classes for essentially the same tuition whether I stayed on campus or enrolled in a program overseas. My major had a summer session in London, and considering my lifelong affection for Princess Diana, the royal family, and World War II history, I signed up, applied for a passport, and bought a plane ticket.

I spent most of that summer in London but also traveled to Ireland, staying in the charming seaside town of Dun Laoghaire. I made friends. I loved my dorm. I was completely and utterly captivated by everything. The people who called everyone darling and love. The accents. The Tube that could take you anywhere. The architecture, the abbeys, Big Ben, calling fries chips and chips crisps. Cadbury vending machines. The feeling that I had stepped into a place so different and so far away, but still somehow felt completely at home.

Looking back, I think what made London particularly magical was that it felt like a portal to adulthood. I was far from home, navigating an unfamiliar city, learning how to belong somewhere new. It was like college, only bigger and foreign and incredible. London was the first place I realized the world was much larger than Michigan, and maybe I was capable of finding my way through it on my own.

I came home and launched into adulthood, marriage, career, motherhood, and the beautiful, relentless rhythm of ordinary life. And somehow, in what feels like a literal blink, nearly thirty years went by. After Brady died, London was one of the first places that came to mind when I started wondering where I might go to collect myself. Not to escape grief; there is no escaping grief. But to return to a place that had once made me feel brave and secure and happy. So a few weeks after Paris, I packed up my girls and we hopped on another plane, this time to the United Kingdom.

Since Brady’s death, one of the many strange surprises of grief has been what it has done to my memory. Both my short term and long term memory have become completely unreliable in ways they never were before. So I was genuinely surprised by how much came flooding back when we stepped off the plane. Streets, restaurants, Tube stations, and landmarks were still familiar, still waiting for me despite being gone for so long, as though grief had stolen so many pieces of my memory and somehow this beautiful city gently handed a few of them back. We intentionally stayed near Marble Arch, close to my London dorm, and added plenty of new adventures.

Stonehenge!

Look kids, Big Ben! And Parliament.

One of our first stops was Stonehenge. There was really no profound reason for this aside from proximity and the fact that it was Stonehenge. Like the Statue of Liberty, it was smaller than I had imagined, but standing in front of something I had only ever seen in textbooks and movies was still surreal. I am a history nerd, and I was glad we went. We took ridiculous pictures and basked in the moment of unabashed tourism.

On the way back, we stopped at Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth’s favorite home, which I had somehow never visited during my study abroad. Then we wandered through Bath, which was a complete and lovely surprise. I had no idea how beautiful it would be. It felt like stepping into an episode of Bridgerton. Elegant storefronts, musicians tucked into side streets, flowers spilling from window boxes, centuries old buildings, Sally Lunn’s Buns, and a magnificent abbey towering above it all. Bath also has a 2,000 year old Roman bathhouse that I, in a benevolent act of mercy, did not require my teenage daughters to tour. We went shopping instead. Because British Airways lost most of our luggage for three days, we spent that afternoon browsing boutiques for clothing and left Bath with an armful of dresses that somehow carried us through until my hostage negotiations with British Airways were complete, and our suitcases were returned.

Brady was a huge Harry Potter fan, a proud Hufflepuff, so we also signed up for the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour. Brady knew the Harry Potter stories inside and out, and while the girls and I have always loved the movies too, Hogwarts was a place that truly belonged to him in our family. We wandered through the Hogwarts Great Hall, stood on the actual sets, watched how Quidditch scenes were filmed, admired the intricate costumes and props, and toasted him with frosty butterbeers. You could ride brooms in front of a green screen, and I was completely delighted to discover they had an adaptive broom that could attach to a wheelchair. The entire time I kept thinking, Wow. Wow wow wow. Brady would have absolutely loved this. Before we left, we printed a Hogwarts acceptance letter for Brady, and a pair of Harry Potter glasses to tuck into his room. I briefly considered explaining to the employee why they mattered so much before deciding against it. Too precious, I thought.

A Butterbeer toast. Those look like Jell-O shots, but they’re just Harry Potter House themed condiments. Blue ranch dressing and yellow mayonnaise. I stuck to the packaged mustard.

These first few adventures made me think so much about the way Brady and I traveled together. He called me his travel buddy, and he was very serious about it. We both loved history, museums, ridiculous roadside attractions, terrible tourist gift shops, scenic overlooks, viewfinders, plaques, and all the wonderfully nerdy detours most people would skip. We also had a habit of leaving behind what I affectionately called respectable graffiti.

Sometimes it was a sticker. Sometimes it was our names and “travel buddies” written on a rock. Nothing destructive. Just tiny proof that we had been somewhere together. One year, on our way to Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, one of my favorite places in the world, we stopped at a Vermont overlook with a little store, ice cream, beautiful views, and guardrails covered in stickers and signatures from travelers who had passed through before us. It was so pretty, and after that, we always stopped there on our way East. Brady wanted to add our names the next time we came. He chose the perfect sticker before we left, packed a Sharpie, and held them the entire way to Vermont on our next trip. When we got there, we walked along the guardrail until he found the right spot. Brady dictated and I wrote: Brady and Mom. 2019. Travel buddies forever. At the time, forever simply meant we loved travelling together, and couldn’t wait for our next trip. Neither of us knew how much those words would come to mean.

There were years when my travel buddy and I did not travel very far. There were seasons when leaving the living room was complicated. Seasons when we barely left the house. Then seasons when he was steadier, and we could make our way to the East Coast or Florida or some other drivable adventure. We became very good at making things work. But it was never simple. Every trip had to be arranged around Brady’s needs: the wheelchair, the feeding tube, medications, accessibility, equipment, sleep, weather, backup plans, and the constant awareness that everything could change quickly.

As his health became more complex, international travel would not have been possible. So without ever consciously deciding to, I laid certain dreams down. This was not because I resented caring for Brady. Never. Caring for him was one of the greatest privileges of my life. I simply came to accept that there were places I would probably never get to see. Adventures that would maybe belong to my daughters or friends. If they ever happened for me, I imagined they would be decades away, sometime in a future too distant to picture.

Instead, Brady and I traveled through YouTube together. We watched walking tours through cities we dreamed of visiting, imagining what it might feel like to wander those streets someday. We paused to look at buildings, museums, old streets, castles, gift shops, and strange little roadside stops that would have made no sense to anyone else and perfect sense to us. We found great tours in Morocco and Jerusalem, Italy and Peru.

Standing on the same Marble Arch Tube platform I had used a hundred times as a college student, a platform that for sure would have reminded Brady of a scene in the Narnia films, I found myself thinking about the myriad of ways Brady still travels with me, despite his absence. Not as a shadow over the trip, but more like a lens. Brady changed the way I see the world. He made me slower, more curious, more willing to stop for the little things no one else notices. He made me the kind of traveler who believes the detour may very well be the point. He made me able to appreciate that just being there, anywhere, is such a gift, for a thousand reasons.

Camden Market.

The London Eye.

So yes, he was missing from London. Painfully. But he was also there in the way I experienced it. In the historical plaques, the gift shops, the ridiculous tourist traps, the butterbeer. In the fact that I could not walk past something odd or historical or weirdly wonderful without thinking, Oh Brady. You would have loved this so much. And because he was my travel buddy, I know he would have understood why standing in London again mattered, why I needed to go back, why getting lost on the Tube, wandering through castles, stopping for souvenirs, and dragging his sisters through old streets felt like more than tourism to me. He would have known it was wayfinding: a mother trying to locate herself in a world that no longer includes her son the way it should. Trying to understand where she fits now, in the unfamiliar geography of a completely new life that holds both the freedom she once longed for, and the loss she would trade anything to undo.

But wayfinding does not have to be solemn. We wandered through Covent Garden, explored Camden Market, and spent hours in Notting Hill. We admired Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey, rode the London Eye, stood beneath Big Ben, and fit in both Matilda and Heathers in the West End.

Heathers was memorable for reasons completely unrelated to theater. Running late to the show after cramming far too much into one day, a habit I refuse to outgrow, we made the classic American tourist mistake. I looked the wrong direction for the lane I was stepping into. A car hit me hard enough to knock me to the ground and, no joke, roll across the street. Thankfully, I escaped with little more than bruises and a scraped up knee. I left my dignity somewhere back in the intersection, dusted myself off, and immediately resumed sprinting toward the theater because: priorities. Eden later informed me that I was the only person she knew who could get hit by a car, tuck and roll, and still make it to a musical on time. I took the compliment, later lost sleep realizing my carelessness could have put Eden in danger, and committed to never jaywalk again for the rest of my life.

We embraced every wonderfully ridiculous tourist experience we could find. Twice we climbed into London’s gloriously over the top pedicabs, those overpriced neon lit bicycle carriages that blast whatever music you request while weaving erratically through city streets.

We visited Tower Bridge and saw the Tower of London. As devoted Gordon Ramsay fans, we also made the pilgrimage to Hell’s Kitchen to finally try Beef Wellington. We shopped our way through Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Selfridges and Zara. We grabbed quick lunches from Pret a Manger, navigated the Tube like locals, and settled into the rhythm of a city that still felt familiar to me three decades and three kids later.

One afternoon, we unexpectedly stumbled upon the King’s Guard marching through the streets. As their music echoed between the old buildings, tears filled my eyes. Even as this happened, it did not make logical sense to me. Brady was not especially fascinated by London. He did not care about the King’s Guard or British history or military bands. But somehow I knew he would have loved stumbling upon a parade, and I wished he was there. We were running late and did not have time to stay and watch, but we did anyway, which he would have endorsed. He would have loved the unexpectedness of it. He would have thought it was cool. And he would have been happy watching his sisters enjoy a city that had once made their mother feel brave. He always wanted good things for the people he loved.

The King’s Guard Parade.

On our last day before heading to the airport, my daughters generously tolerated one last spontaneous trip down memory lane as we popped by my old college dorm, Nutford House. I knocked on the front door hoping they might let us peek inside the entrance for thirty seconds. Instead, the house manager welcomed us in and gave us a full tour. She tried to find my room. She showed us the common room where our study abroad group first met. The garden where I wrote papers. The cafeteria where I was introduced to terrible British food. I was able to show it all to my girls. And when I walked back outside, I was covered in goosebumps. Nostalgia is a funny thing; it allows you to step into a younger version of yourself for just a few moments before abruptly returning you to the person you have become, like wavy lines and harp chords representing a memory flashback in a childhood cartoon.

This dorm was exactly the same. Like stepping back in time.

I have accepted that I will probably never get used to Brady being gone. I may learn new routes through this life, but I will always be navigating them without a part of myself.

Thirty years ago, London taught a twenty year old college student that her world was much bigger than Michigan. It helped me find my place in the world. This summer, London gave me something different. It handed back pieces of memory I thought grief had stolen. It let me walk through a place where one version of me began, when I thought I would never be back. It let my daughters see the city that first made their mother feel brave and happy.

And it reminded me that the woman I was before loss has not disappeared. She is changed. Of course she is. But she is still here. And so is Brady, not as a shadow over everything, but as a lens, still shaping what I notice, what I love and where I am willing to wander.

The first time I went to London, I learned I could find my way in the world.

The second time, I began to believe I could find my way in this one, too.

Travel buddies forever.

Forever.