Mama's good to you

Mama's good to you

Mama's good to you

Is it possible to take a holiday while you are on a year long round the world trip? Well if you can then Family Week was my week being on holiday. I was about to spend a week with my sister, Karen, and Mother in Isla Mujeres, a small island off the coast of Cancun. Even before I had set off on my journey I had been put in touch with Mama T, an amazing & lovely woman in Nashville. She had emailed to say that I could stay at their house in Nashville with their gay, Rhett. She also told me that they had a villa in Isla Mujeres and I could go there for a week in October too. It was an unbelievably generous offer given I had never met her, the introduction coming through a mutual friend. I knew that having a guaranteed week in a villa in Mexico would give me a chance to get Karen and Mother across to meet me while I was on my trip. We had discussed the possibility of meeting up somewhere but had decided that it would be pretty difficult to make it work what with the uncertainties in my itinerary and the distance that would need to be travelled for them to meet me in most places I planned on going.

I decided that I wouldn’t tell them about the offer until after I had been to Nashville, met Mama T in person and made sure the offer was still good. It was and I couldn’t thank her enough for giving me the chance to see my family. It had been really difficult to keep it a secret from them, especially when Mother kept saying how it would be hard not getting to see me for nearly 9 months while I was away. I was so close to telling her so many times but managed to keep it a surprise. After Nashville I told Karen, made sure she could get the week off work and then booked them flights over to Cancun. Everyone was very excited.

This would be the first family holiday in two years, the previous one being a trip to New York. I have two enduring memories of that holiday. The first was when we were inside the Statue of Liberty and Mother got her sweater caught on the handrail when going back down the winding staircase. She couldn’t move and all you could hear echoing inside the hollow metal statue was her saying “I’m stuck, I can’t move”. Karen, who was in front, just kept on walking down the stairs. I was coming down the stairs behind Mother so unstuck her sweater but not after taking a couple of photos. The other memory was trying to get a photo of Mother up the Top of the Rock. After several unsuccessful attempts to get a nice photo Karen turned to Mother and asked “Are you enjoying your holiday in New York?” to which Mother replied she was. Karen then followed it up with “Well do you want to tell your face?” at which point we all started laughing and I managed to get a nice photo. If there was one thing guaranteed during Family Week it would be a lot of laughter.

The stunning Casa Vaya Vida

In my head the family reunion would work like this. I would be waiting at arrivals as my flight to Cancun was due in a couple of hours before theirs. They would come out of the doors, see me, drop their luggage, run towards me and we would have a big hug. My flight landed on time, giving me plenty of time at the airport to find somewhere for lunch with wi-fi access to check on their flight progress. All good so far. I tracked their flight which the airport website said was due to land roughly on time at Terminal 2. When the plane status changed to landed I packed up my laptop and headed to the door where arriving passengers would come out. After a little while I started to wonder where they could be. I managed to find a rep for the company that they had flown with. She got on her radio to someone, asked about the flight and then told me it had arrived into Terminal 3. I went into full on sweary mode, muttering “Buggery bollocks” to myself.

Supplies from home

I grabbed my case and made my way to Terminal 3. There was a free shuttle bus between the terminals. As I waited for it I was approached by a man who asked where I was going. I told him I was only going to Terminal 3. He offered to drive me for $10. I told him I would get on the free bus that was just pulling up in front of me. By the time I had got to the right terminal Karen & Mother were stood outside waiting for me. Not quite how I had wanted it to go but there was still hugging. They explained that they had been there for a few minutes but hadn’t seen our minibus anywhere. I left my case with them and went for a quick look along the line of minibuses and taxis that were parked up. I found the minibus belonging to the company we had booked through but there was no driver in it. As I headed back I could see Karen waving at me. They had found the driver. We had all been expecting him to have a sign with my name on it but for some reason they had gone with Mother’s name. Sort of. There was a small mistake with the name board. We called Mother “Frank” for the whole journey across to Isla.

It was so good seeing the family again. I had not seen them since May when I went home for Mother’s 60th birthday celebrations. I normally wouldn’t have seen them again until October anyway for Karen’s birthday but I think the physical distance between us for the last few months made it feel like it had been longer since I last saw them. After a minibus ride, a ferry crossing and a short taxi ride we were at Casa Vaya Vida. We let ourselves in. The place was stunning, the photos of it don’t really do it justice. After walking round the whole place, picking bedrooms and unpacking I was given a couple of gifts. They had brought me a bottle of gin from duty free, a selection of Percy Pigs from M&S and a handful of sachets of HP sauce from Manchester airport. It was time for Family Week!

“Mama’s good to you” 
Lyrics from When you’re good to Mama from the musical Chicago