Most places in Iceland are quite small. 65% of the population lives in Reykjavik. The 2nd biggest town has only 8000 people and most places are smaller than 1000 people. The inland of Iceland is uninhabitable and everyone lives on the coast. The hottest day ever recorded in Iceland was 80 degrees F. The hottest for summer of 2022 is a mere 64 degrees F. While a lot of things are expensive in Iceland, there are two things which are very inexpensive: water and electricity. Homes are heated via hot water from volcanoes. The water is crystal clear. Sometimes the hot water smells like sulfur but it is very clean. Iceland was the poorest country in Europe at the turn of the century. It was under Danish control until 1944. During WWII, Denmark was taken by the Nazis and Iceland received independence. The U.S. and England used Iceland during WWII by bringing ships and subs into their deep, calm fjords around their island country, as it was a very strategic location. Iceland is actually a founding member of NATO. Tourism started in 2010 and became a booming industry for Iceland with the cruise lines. The draw to Iceland are its hiking, waterfalls, volcanoes, black sand beaches and northern lights.

On our second day in Iceland, we took a 10 hour tour of the southern coast of the island. We saw some beautiful waterfalls, glaciers, black sand beaches and basalt rock formations. It was, I know….shocker….windy and rainy. We were able to see some puffins though, which was really fun. They are Lily’s spirit animal. She just loves them. We were told we had missed them by about a week. They come to a small rocky island off the coast of Iceland to breed every summer. When they leave, they all go en masse to wherever it is they travel to next. Luckily there were a few stragglers on the black sand beach we visited this day. It was so windy and rainy but I hope I caught a few shots so you can see them! One interesting fact amongst many we learned from our awesome tour guide was that other countries send materials to make aluminum in Iceland. There are 3 aluminum smelting plants in Iceland. They take up so much energy and heat to work that other countries bring their materials to Iceland to create their aluminum.

We ended our evening with some really good food. Rich had some lamb chops and I had salmon. Both were very good.

Sorry it has taken me so long to get these photos and stories posted. I had to play catch up with my life at home….and the weather has been nice. I learned when I lived in rainy, misty Norway, that whenever the weather is nice, you drop everything and just spend time outside enjoying the weather – and so I have. I made a few day trips with Lily – to Kansas to see the acres and acres of sunflower fields near Lawrence, Kansas….and then the following week to a beautiful farm in Jefferson, Iowa to take photos in an acre of zinnia fields. There are a lot of photos yet to come, but I wanted to get my thoughts and photos from Iceland and Ireland posted. We flew to Iceland and stayed for 3 days (all of which it rained, and the wind blew) to tour this beautiful country and get acclimated to European time before heading to 9 days in Ireland. The best word to describe the weather in Iceland: MOODY.

We arrived in Keflavik, Iceland (that is where the international airport is located) early in the morning on August 17th, our 31st anniversary. We flew through the night from DC to Iceland…which is about a 6-hour flight. There is a five-hour time change from Nebraska to Iceland. Rich and I decided ahead of time we would just stay in Reykjavik, the capitol of Iceland, and not rent a car. We would use public transportation to get to and from Keflavik (the airport – which is 45 minutes away) and just do tours the three days we were there. The first day, we were actually scheduled to do separate tours – our first time doing that. Rich was interested in snorkeling in the very deep waters between the two tectonic plates of the continents of North America and Europe in Silfra, in Thingvellir National Park. He said the water was very clear and extremely cold. He wore a dry suit but evidently still got a bit wet. I have yet to see the photos taken by the guide, but I will share when I do. He was gone about 5 hours….mostly driving to and from the National Park. I was not interested in doing that so I was SUPPOSED to go on a ship to whale watch and see some puffins. My tour was cancelled due to poor sea conditions. Let me tell you what this translated to….it was about 50 degrees and 30-40 mph winds and raining…. sideways. Yeah, I was fine not being on a boat. However, our apartment wasn’t ready either, so I was out and about walking in that mess for several hours. Luckily the city of Reykjavik is not very spread out.

Iceland is the self-proclaimed country of “fire and ice”. It is cold and windy and a lot of it is uninhabitable. It is made up of a series of volcanoes. Although it is really green because of all the rain they get, there is a lot of lava rock EVERYWHERE. You can tell how long it has been since a nearby volcano has gone off by looking at the vegetation. The black lava fields are everywhere, and they show the most recent volcanic activity. After a few HUNDRED years, moss will start to grow over the lava rock. As centuries pass, soil and vegetation start to grow and it becomes very green. Many of these places are blocked off to protect the vegetation. There are a lot of sheep, cows, and horses….all from Iceland. The Icelanders do not allow other animals into their country unless they are dogs or cats and are domesticated pets. Even then, they have to be quarantined for several weeks to make sure they are not bringing in any diseases. They export their horses but do not bring more in. They tried to bring in some horses to diversify the breed of their Icelandic horses several decades ago and even though they were cleared by veterinarians to come into the country, they had something in their blood that wiped out 40% of their herds. Think of the Europeans coming to North America and bringing their diseases to the Native Americans. Same idea. So now they just go with what they have. Their Icelandic horses are very strong and hearty and have shorter, sturdier legs. They have long fur in the winters and shed their long hair during the summer. The farmers release the sheep to the hills inland to feed during the summer and then all go on horseback to bring them down from the hills for sheering, slaughtering…whatever in the fall. Due to the fragility of the vegetation on the lava rock, there are no motorcycles or three and four wheelers that help to herd the sheep. It is only farmers on horseback. The sheep are marked with either ear tags or spray paint. The farmers gather all the sheep they can find and then contact the farmers to whom the extra sheep belong to. They meet and swap for their own sheep. There is only one animal indigenous to Iceland and that is the Arctic Fox. They are not easy to find and have a sanctuary inland in which many of them live.

Iceland has a population of about 370,000 people and is made up of 103,000 square kilometers. It is called a micro population. Not many people….and they only live on the coastline of Iceland. A great majority live in Reykjavik. Most of the other towns are very small. I will share more in further posts, but for this one, I wanted to show you photos of Reykjavik. Lots of cobblestone-lined roads. The population in the city is about 220,000. Euros are the money used there and Icelandic is the language. Most of you know that we used to live in Norway, another of the Nordic countries. I felt a lot of my Norwegian coming back as a lot of the words are the same. However….they have a few extra letters that are even above and beyond the extra letters in the Norwegian alphabet and those just threw me for a loop (or a dot…or a slash).

So here are some of the photos of the city. We so enjoyed our time there! There is a huge cathedral called Hallgrimskirkja (the church of Hallgrimur). It is a Lutheran Church and towers at 74 meters tall. It is the tallest church in the country and the 6th tallest structure in Iceland. The architect designed it in the late 1930’s and was inspired by the Icelandic basalt lava columns that are found all over Iceland. The Church was finished in 1986 and has a huge pipe organ that is 15 meters tall and weighs 25 tons! It has over 5000 pipes and easily fills the huge space with music, as when I took refuge from the rain and wind that first day in the church, the organist was practicing. Although a Lutheran church with the stark relief of a Protestant church, it has a traditional Catholic candle lighting area in the back, where I lit a candle for my Joe. I also paid a small amount to ride the elevator to the top and see the giant bell that rings every quarter hour and look out over the city and the coastline. Right in front of the church is a big statue of Leif Eriksson. The sculpture was given to Iceland in the 1930’s from the United States to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of Icelandic Parliament. I actually went a few times to this church to catch it during the daytime and then at sunset…which wasn’t until nearly 10 p.m. when I was there. There are a few shopping areas near the church that has a rainbow road leading to the church and then a giant hopscotch on the pedestrian path that goes on for several city blocks. A lot of the natives who live and work in town ride those electric scooters everywhere..going pretty fast. I was surprised to not be run over by one of these folks.

One of my favorite sculptures in the area was the Sun Voyager. It is a huge stainless-steel sculpture of a boat set on granite beside the sea. We always pick up a little token of the country we have visited to put in our “world traveling curio cabinet’ in our living room. We got a small replica of this sculpture. We went there a few times as well. The sunset reflecting on the sculpture was really striking…making it look like a burning boat. There are a lot of Viking things in Iceland…as they were also the land of the Vikings. So, this was so appropriate.

Today is a hard day. The world has seemed to forgotten what happened 21 years ago. Thousands of innocent people killed in a matter of hours. It was so traumatic in my life. I remember asking Joe if he remembered that day. He was nearly 7 and said he remembered me crying a lot. Joe, Tim, and I lived in Colorado Springs, CO at the time, in an apartment. Rich was still stationed in North Dakota at the time. In fact, he had been to the Pentagon just a couple of days prior on a TDY. We were on Mountain Time, so we were getting ready for school for Joe. He was wearing his Tiger Cub Scout uniform to school for the first time. He was so proud of that uniform. He would wear other uniforms in his lifetime….for the Army and as a fireman. The ripple effects of that day to the young ones….first graders….then as young adults, they were in the military and serving in the Middle East against the war on terror that started on that fateful day.

Today, Joe’s best friend did what he does every year. He donned his full firefighter bunker gear and climbed 110 flights of stairs in memory of the fallen firefighters in 2001 that climbed all those stairs to save people from the twin towers and in turn, gave their lives. Joe had gone with Zac on these memorial climbs to cheer him on. Today he was supposed to join him in his bunker gear and they were to do it side-by-side….instead, he carries the leather strap on his uniform that bears Joe’s name on it on his uniform with him. I hope Zac knows that Joe is with him today as he does his climb…just as he is with him on every call he answers with his crew. Michelle and two of Joe’s closest friends did a memorial climb yesterday at a stadium. They wore their Joe Messina memorial t-shirts and I am so proud of all of them. They are honoring his memory in the most wonderful ways.

So today I was really missing Joe. Sundays are just really hard. Joe was born on a Sunday and then also died on a Sunday. Sundays are hard. We were at our church and I saw that we would be singing hymn #446 in our hymnals. #446 is Joe’s OFD firefighter badge number. I wear a OFD badge pendant with #446 on it and a message about Joe on the back. I wear it everyday. I have been pretty open about the fact that my faith life is in a desert right now. I am really struggling. However, when I looked up what song it was, I smiled when I saw it was “Amazing Grace.” The Holy Spirit and Joe were surrounding me at that moment, as I felt it wasn’t a coincidence.

Today I will share some pretty old photos of a young Joe….when he showed signs of wanting to be in the military and a fireman when he was little…and then pictures of him more recently as those dreams came to fruition. September 11th marked all of us that were adults at the time, but it really had a trickle down effect on the youngsters as well.

Tomorrow it will be 6 months since Joe died. I want to type “left us” but I honestly think he is still here sometimes, giving me little signs that he is here by my side. I live for those signs because I just miss him so very much.

I have been traveling a lot this summer. I have been gone more than I have been home. Even as I type this, I am not at home, but in Indiana, helping my parents get to see my sister and her family. I have been traveling abroad the last few weeks and will put some photos up in a few weeks when I have them processed and my parents are back home. I will be driving all day tomorrow, on the 6 month anniversary of Joe’s death, so I thought I would write this now, while I have the opportunity.

My life completely shattered when Joe died. Am I better now than I was then? Maybe. I wouldn’t say better…just different. A lot of friends and family have backed away to give us time to grieve and collect ourselves. I am sorry to say that doesn’t help. I am grieving my child…and it is not a process or a step-by-step program that has an ending point of a rainbow and puppies (although I still appreciate and marvel over both). I have learned that this utter devastation…this deep-seeded grief for the loss of my son, will never leave. I will carry it in my heart, on my soul, as long as I breathe. It is not getting easier, but it is getting different. I don’t think you ever get over the loss of a close loved one, but you learn to live with that loss better. I am meeting with a Stephen Minister from a local Methodist church once a week. It is a ministry of listening. She asks me questions and then just listens. There are tears, there is laughter, and in the end, there is prayer. I have missed the last 3 weeks due to travel and I am looking forwards to meeting with her again. I have signed up for a child loss program through a Catholic Church in a town near Omaha called Jesus Wept. I am looking forward to it because I have so many questions….why did God chose to take Joe? Is God punishing me? I was ready to go because of my advanced cancer diagnosis. Why did God take him instead of me? My faith is in a desert right now. I pray and expect nothing. I go to Mass and leave sadder than when I arrived. I thought facing my own mortality was hard…it is nothing compared to this. Please don’t leave a comment about God having a reason that none of us know. I already know that and it doesn’t help to have it repeated over and over again. Just like it didn’t help when I was diagnosed with stage IV cancer and people told me, “God has a reason for this.” That is a hard pill to swallow while you are sick on chemo.

I have spent much of the last 6 months trying my best to comfort Michelle, Joe’s wife, from afar….in the best way I can. We are both deeply hurting, but in different ways. I have lost my son….she has lost the love of her life. I have tried to reach out to his friends through letters or social media, because I know they are hurting too. I try to talk about Joe a lot….to his brother and sister and my husband. The memories may sting a little bit at first, but more often they end in laughter, because Joe did that for me….made me laugh. What a beautiful gift! So I love to talk about him…because memories are all I have now and I don’t want to forget them. When I was first told I was going to die young, I was so afraid that my kids would forget me. I am not sure I ever told anyone that, but that was it. Rich would eventually remarry, life would march on, and I would be forgotten. Pretty selfish, right? Well, I don’t want Joe to be forgotten, so it actually makes me mad when people won’t mention his name. Yes, I may cry. I cry all the time in private. I cry much more in public now and just don’t care. But those tears are cleansing. I guess I wouldn’t say if you aren’t willing to see those tears, say your goodbyes and stay away because it is my life now. I can’t help it. I want to mention that until you lose a child….you can’t understand. I can be distracted for awhile, but it will all come crashing down again.

I don’t say all of this to bring you down, but to let you know where I am coming from. Grief is very lonely. Being deserted by friends and family until they think you might be happy again? Well, makes it even more lonely. If I turn down an invitation to lunch or a Bible Study….I am just not ready. It takes so much work and energy to try and be “normal” out in public. I feel like I am standing still while the world marches on around me. I am often more comfortable in the company of strangers because they don’t know the “old” me….the one that smiled all the time. I now feel it when I smile….as it isn’t as automatic as it was in the past. I try very hard to not make people around me feel uncomfortable….but again, that is a lot of work. Grief is exhausting. With my cancer and the meds I am on, I just have to pick and chose how exhausted I want to become. Sometimes going to a cardio class with strangers at the YMCA is less exhausting than being with friends I know. It is weird…but I am just letting you know how it is.

So Joe. I miss him so very much and I can’t believe it has been 6 months already. Six months ago I would have said that my heart couldn’t take continuing to live for 6 months…yet here I am….still putting one foot in front of the other. There are a lot of other “firsts” coming up pretty soon that will be hard to go through. But I can’t borrow worry for another day. This one is big enough. So I end with some favorite photos of my Joe…

This week Lily starts her senior year. I am going to miss the first week and a half because I will be out of town, but her grandparents are by her side as she enters her last year of high school. I took a photo of her this morning before she went to her orientation at school. School starts Wednesday. She had a wild hair yesterday and cut off a good majority of her hair, which she will be donating as she did last time. This girl has had a really tough high school career. Freshman year, I am diagnosed with stage IV cancer and got very sick from my initial treatments. Then there was that whole COVID thing. Our relationship barely survived home school time. Ugh. Then, of course, her biggest brother dies in a car accident. Let us all pray for a quiet, boring year with nothing but good surprises in store for her.

On a side note, Michelle gave us Joe’s senior ring to give to Lily this week. It was funny because it was such a blend of Rich’s and my class rings. I am so sad that he won’t be here to cheer her on during her senior year. However, I know he is always by her side, watching out for her.

A few days after we got back from our trip out west, Rich and I drove down to Kansas City to take Michelle out to a baseball game. The Red Sox were playing and we have gone down there before with the Royals are hosting Boston. It is easier than flying back to Boston for a game…although Fenway….so worth it! We met Michelle at her house and took her out to dinner before heading to the stadium. Although Michelle is not a big baseball fan, she managed to don a Royals shirt and happily accompanied us when we bribed her with chocolate dippin dots. I was very blessed to have a friend from Leesville High School, where we both graduated together decades ago, join us. It was so great to catch up with Leif and to introduce him to Rich and Michelle. The Red Sox did not win. The Boston manager got kicked out of the game for mouthing off to the ump. Ah well. It was so great to be able to spend some time with Michelle and catch up on everything. I can’t begin to tell you all how proud I am of all the hard work she has done. Grief sucks. We lost our son and she lost the love of her life. Thankfully, we still have each other and can lean on each other when need be. Only regret? We should have had her wear the extra Red Sox jersey we brought!

We got off our ship pretty early and had the entire day to travel around Seattle. We once again found a Bounce to drop off our luggage, and then went on the Hop On, Hop Off bus around the city. We had been in Seattle only about 3 years ago, and so we knew what we wanted to see again and what we could politely pass by. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had a great last full day of vacation in the Pacific Northwest.

Note…the gum wall. It is like a trainwreck…it is awful and you want to look away, but you can’t help but stare in fascination. I have MANY gumwall photos of all three of our kids over the years. And…we always stop at Pike’s Market Place and eat hot sugared donuts in brown paper bags, watch the fishermen try and sell the fish, admire the amazing flowers, and take photos by the brass pig. It is what the Messinas do when in Seattle.

I don’t know if the cruise lines were unhappy with Canada for closing its ports to cruise ships for 2+ years or what, but Canada got the short end of the stick during this cruise…and by most of the cruiselines coming through this port. We were required to make a stop in Canada…so we did – for 3 hours from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m. Everything was already closed and we saw most of the city in the dark. We walked A LOT on this stop…going through some gardens along the coast and then heading inland towards the Chinatown…which was, of course, all closed. We were paired up on the ship with another family for all our dinner meals. They were also retired military and had a teen daughter adopted from China. Lily and Sophia pal’d around on the ship in the evening after dinner a few nights. We ran into them at the entrance to Chinatown and took pictures of the girls together. Sophia is younger, but is much bigger than our Lily. Sorry Canada, we tried to be friendly, but nothing was open!

This stop was fascinating! I loved this town and really wished that I would be able to have more time there. This is the salmon capital of Alaska. We saw a lot of bald eagles and got to spend some time walking around Creek Street, where the infamous Dolly and her brothel, were frequented by the men during the Gold Rush. There are a lot of totem poles here as well. I just really had a nice time there and wanted more time to explore.

On this day we had an excursion but we did not ever put our feet on land. We met a bunch our group of fellow adventurers at 6:30 a.m. to wait for our smaller boats to arrive and board them. When I woke up I looked at the temperature….knowing I would have to dress warmer being closer to the water and close to glaciers. The ambient temperature was 32 degrees. Layers! It was also windy and raining. Even better! I didn’t have to jockey for positions along the railing to take photos outside the main cabin.

For a few hours we tootled around, traveling to different glaciers in the area and marveling at the bright blue frozen ice everywhere in the mist. We saw a lot of seals and a few bald eagles. Lily couldn’t manage to find a sweatshirt she would like to have because she wanted a plain one…one that didn’t say ALASKA all over it. She did, however, find a hat that she loved to wear. The pictures of Rich sleeping was on our cabin balcony. We were cruising through this beautiful fjord and it was so peaceful. Rich was being my “spotter” in case we saw some wild animals or birds. However, between our early start that morning and the glaciertini (yep a martini made with glacial ice) that was pretty strong on the excursion, he didn’t last long. Considering we didn’t have winter coats, just rain coats layered over our other layers, we stayed relatively warm except for our fingers.