Today is a very, very special day.
*everyone frantically checking the calendar for a national holiday*
Nah, man. Today is special merely because it is my mother, Grace’s, birthday. And yeah, as far as I’m concerned, the twenty-seventh of August is a national holiday.
(Btw, part 1 of her gift this year: Me not revealing her age. YOU’RE WELCOME!)
My mom is my absolute favorite person in the world. And of course, for someone you adore and respect so much, you always want to celebrate them and their day as best you can. Every year, when my sister and I ask what my mom would like for her birthday, we are met with the same answer:
“Nothing. I never celebrated my birthday as a child. There’s really no need.”
…. WELL SWEET, OUR WORK HERE IS DONE.
JK. That’s just the type of person my mom is: selfless and humble. If you’ve ever met her, you’d undoubtedly agree.
Over the years, my sister and I have gotten her the usual: cards, gifts, nice meals for her birthday. And every year, she accepts them with the same persistent gratitude she has towards life. But there are only so many words you can write into a card every single year. This year, I’d like to instead share a short story about my mom, in hopes that I can illustrate even a fraction of how amazing of a person she is.
Here goes.
Back in March, my mom joined me for a two-week adventure in Iceland. After spending four solo days there first, I distinctly remember picking her up from the airport in Keflavik at 4AM one windy morning. She’s usually never able to get a single wink of rest on airplanes, so I couldn’t imagine how exhausted she’d be after the journey.
That said, seeing her, you could never tell she’d just flown in all the way from San Francisco. This morning, she was all smiles. We stepped out of the airport into the dark, brisk Icelandic morning. The first thing she did was pull out her phone: “I can’t believe I’m in Europe for the first time – Let’s take a selfie!!”
…… SMH. I could only chuckle – she’s always had the heart and vivaciousness of a kid. Probably where I get it from, honestly. By the way, I eventually conceded to that selfie. But we look awful. It was 4AM. I will not show you said selfie.
Let’s skip forward to one of the most special and defining moments of my life.
We had been in Iceland for more than a week, and had already seen so many of the beautiful landscapes the country had to offer – even rode Icelandic horses and climbed a glacier! This trip was already a dream.
One of the primary reasons why we chose to travel to Iceland at the end of their winter season was not because we are unapologetic masochists and wanted to freeze our little butts off.
It was so we’d have even the slightest chance of seeing the famed northern lights. The month of March would be near the end of aurora season – and we wanted to test our luck.
A few days back, we had done a glacier hike – and included in that “tour” – they would take us on a “northern lights chase”. Though we did (allegedly) “see” some lights, it was not nearly as awe-inspiring as I had expected. With the naked eye, the “lights” just looked like wispy clouds in the distance. Nothing to write home about, if you ask me.
Were my expectations just too high? Did I hype it up too much in my mind?
Eh, both my mom and I weren’t 100% convinced this was all we were going to see, since we still had more than a week left of our trip. With that, we checked the aurora forecast site religiously – and every single day the prediction was either a 0 or 1 on a scale to 9. As each day came and went, we were starting to lose hope in our aurora chase.
But ever the optimistic adventurer, even if the forecast was at a 1 (very low chances), and the sky was completely overcast, my mom would somehow convince me in her contagious fervor that we should still drive out into the crazy snow/winds in the dead of night to see if we could catch a glimpse of the lights.
(I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I knew I had inherited my sense of adventure from somewhere.)
But we were never so lucky.
One morning, on a pit stop while we were driving down the eastern coast of Iceland, I checked the aurora forecast site once again, expecting another dismal prediction.
I blinked. Blinked again. Are my eyes deceiving me??? The forecast said activity would be a solid “8” tonight!!!
I told my mom and immediately her eyes lit up. “We have to drive out to a dark area tonight, far away from any town!” she said.
I smiled and agreed.
That day was a full driving day. There’s not much to see in eastern Iceland so we basically spent the entire day driving to the South.
(This can be a story for another time, but that day, I was *THIS CLOSE* to attempting to drive down a “Closed Mountain Pass Road” just because “I-figured-our-non-4WD-car-could-probably-make-it-despite-the-heavy-snows-and-roads-not-having-been-plowed-for-a-year-and-no-cell-service”………. yeah, let’s just say I am very lucky my mom was there to knock some sense into me. She was extremely pissed off I even fathomed such an idea and probably wondered where she went wrong in parenting. Let me reassure you, my terrible life-decision-making-skills were not inherited from her. I’m pretty self-taught in that arena.)
Finally around 7PM, we made it to our hotel (if you could even call it that) in the middle of nowhere. It was a small town called Skalafell – there wasn’t even a gas station in this town – that’s how remote it was.
After dinner, we went back to our room to rest before we would drive out beyond the town lights to hopefully catch those northern lights.
Sitting in our room, we suddenly hear some shuffling outside. I hear the hotel owner say “The lights!!”
Say no more: my mother and I immediately packed up our belongings, put on 8 layers of clothing each, and headed out.
I took one step out of the hotel. Something in my field of vision felt……. off. I looked up.
Oh my word. The sky is green.
I heard my mom gasp. We both took steps forward but were unable to peel our eyes away from the sky.
It looked exactly like if someone animated a Van Gogh painting. Swirling green among a dark blue, starry sky – it was absolutely mesmerizing and I was speechless, aside from the 3,000 “wow”‘s that were uttered.
In the end, we didn’t even make it into the car to drive out “into the darkness”. We didn’t need to. Even amidst all the lights of Skalafell, you could see the aurora swirling above us, clear as day (no pun intended).
I can’t speak for my mom, but for me, it was an out-of-body experience; as if I were witnessing something that couldn’t possibly be from this world. I would blink and the sky would completely change shape – that’s how fast the lights were morphing above us.
I remember looking at my mom amidst all of this. A pure, unadulterated sparkle in her eye. For a split second, she was her 5-year-old self, staring up into the night in wonder. Despite our faces, ears, toes, fingers freezing over – it didn’t matter – nothing mattered except us and this once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Despite my attempts above, no words can effectively convey the exact emotions standing there that night with my mom. I have expressed many times how I prefer to travel alone – but something told me a trip to Iceland would be much better if I spent it with my favorite person in the world.
And this experience with my mom – that night – it changed my life.
Sure, through life, she and I have and will have our differences. After all, much like that one magical night’s sky in Iceland, life is a series of twists and turns. But to have the person you love the most in this world experience all of these swirls and whirls alongside you – I can truly say there is no greater blessing.
I love you, mom.
Happy Birthday.
the wanderlust is real. 