At 69, I Sold My House to Travel Around the World Despite My Children’s Protests – In Australia, a Man Invited Me to His Home for Coffee, but When I Walked Into His Living Room, I Froze

Don’t visit places because you think I would have liked them.

Visit them because you do.

Eat something I would have hated.

Stay somewhere too expensive at least once.

Take a train just because the view looks beautiful.

Get lost.

Laugh loudly.

Buy the ridiculous souvenir.

And please, Abigail, stop asking yourself whether you deserve happiness.”

I pressed the letter against my chest.

Then I read the next paragraph.

“The children love you.

But loving them doesn’t mean surrendering your life to them.

They will be disappointed sometimes.

Let them.

They will survive.

And you will still be their mother.”

I closed my eyes.

I had spent years believing that saying no to my children meant I wasn’t a good mother.

Robert knew.

He had always known.

The final paragraph destroyed me.

“My greatest regret isn’t that I didn’t live long enough to travel.

It’s that I helped you believe there would always be more time.

There isn’t always more time.

So if you’re reading this in Australia, don’t come here to find me.

I’m not there.

I’m in every place we never got to see.

And maybe, just maybe, you can finally see them for both of us.”

At the bottom was one final line.