We had plans.
Small plans.
Realistic plans.
Robert wanted to travel.
He wanted to see Italy.
He wanted to stand in front of the pyramids.
He wanted to drive across Australia.
He wanted to take me to Paris and order breakfast in a tiny café where neither of us understood the menu.
I wanted those things too.
We talked about them constantly.
We had a little envelope in our kitchen drawer labeled:
TRAVEL.
Whenever we had spare money, we put some inside.
Twenty dollars.
Fifty.
Sometimes only five.
We laughed about how slowly it was growing.
“Someday,” Robert would say.
“Someday,” I’d answer.
Then our first child came.
Then the second.
Then the third.
Then the fourth.
The envelope stayed in the drawer.
The children grew.
The house needed repairs.
School fees appeared.
Cars broke down.
Someone always needed braces, medicine, shoes, or help with a bill.
Our travel fund became an emergency fund.
Then it became nothing.
Robert never complained.
Neither did I.
We simply kept saying the same word.
Someday.
Then Robert got sick.
And suddenly someday became something we talked about in the past tense.
He died twelve years ago.
After his funeral, I found the old travel envelope in the kitchen drawer.
