My Mother Never Took a Vacation, So I Take Them For Her

“Marcelle lived a life that brought her such joy that she never felt the need to take a vacation,” the minister said at my mother’s funeral service.

After my mother died from COVID in 2022, we had a small private memorial service. She didn’t belong to a church so the night before, the minister called to learn more about her. I said the word people most often used to describe her was “kind.” She was the kindest person I’d ever known. She had also survived more hardship and pain in her 77 years than anyone — especially someone with such a kind heart — should ever have to endure.

But during the service, I realized he had misunderstood one other tidbit I’d shared: that she had never truly gone on a single vacation in her entire life. That wasn’t because, as he had assumed, she hadn’t wanted to. Just the opposite — I’m sure my mother had desperately wished for an opportunity to escape over the years.

The real reason my mother never went on a vacation was much more practical. It was a luxury she could never afford.

My mother lived in poverty her entire life. The eldest of seven siblings born into a poor family, she then raised four children alone, with no child support or alimony, after escaping an abusive marriage. For virtually her entire life, she survived on a patchwork of safety net programs, sometimes augmented by wages from a low-paying job. She struggled to make it through an endless cycle of food and housing insecurity. Often unable to afford necessities, she could have never dreamed of splurging on even an overnight getaway.

In my mother’s later years, my siblings and I were eager to treat her to a vacation — but sadly, by that point, her health conditions led to mobility limitations. She had also developed severe anxiety, so that she only traveled for medical treatments and other obligations, as opposed to taking any pleasure trips of her choosing.