When I woke up on Tuesday July 24th, 2018 I could have never imagined how the day would have unfolded.

I was working from home on Tuesday  because I was helping my parents at their new condo. After that was done it was off to sleep country to buy a new bed as I had been procrastinating for…well, a long time.

When I got home I started my work day. I had sent Heath a text message at 11:42am telling him I finally bought my new bed and I hope his flight went well and to call me later that night. He didn’t reply, but I knew he was flying and then busy while he started his trip in DC. We always speak at night so that wasn’t abnormal.

When I work from home I usually have the tv on in the background, but that day I decided to keep my Ipad in my office and listen to some playlists. Again, not a normal work day.

At 1:12pm it all changed. I got an Imessage from Brad advising me that there has been an emergency Heath on the plane. He didn’t have all the details and he would get back to me. Instantly I think I already knew. I was sick with worry. I switched my play list from my upbeat music to my mellow music while I anxiously waited for the reply from Brad. If I had been at work on Tuesday I would have not seen this message until the evening. I would have come home to these messages.

I asked Brad to call me when he knew anything. But I think in my heart I already knew. I sent Heath another text, hoping that whatever had happened, he was okay and he would write back. Nothing.

Then Brad called me. He delivered the news but I think I already knew. It was similar to the old Peanuts cartoons where when the teacher talks all you hear all the muffled sounds. “The news is not good. Heath didn’t make it”. What? How is that even possible. I got off the phone with Brad and instantly started to scream. I called my mom, and couldn’t even get the words out. I called a couple of friends and they instantly dropped everything and came to my house.

These are the words that come to mind: inconsolable, unimaginable, unbelievable, mean, horrible, horrific, tragic, love, heartbroken, loss, permanent, forever, friendship, laughter, grief, missing, empty. 

For a while the three of us just sat around saying that it was wrong, that he was going to call me like he did every night and ask me why I sent him so many texts when I knew he was on a plane. That he would call me a mess when I didn’t hear back from him and thought something was wrong. That he would tell me some crazy story about someone on the plane or in the airport or the Black Suburban Uber driver that picked them up at the airport.

But no, that call never came. And it is never going to come again. For the past five days days that is the one thing that keeps haunting me. That no matter what was going on in either of our lives, we spoke every night. Every night since Tuesday I have looked at the clock at the same time of the day that the phone would ring.  We spoke three times on Monday night.

It is funny, as I am writing this post that I am thinking about something I found in my home office on Tuesday morning. It is a hand written sheet of blog post ideas. I hadn’t written in my blog(s) for a long time. I said out loud on Tuesday that I am going to start writing again. I think that those topics will go on the shelf and I will pick them up again some time in the future. I think that my blog will be dedicated for the next while to my healing. Sharing my stories of my time with Heath. Sharing the love, life friendship and what I am going to call my #HeathLessons. He had many special gifts. HAD. Another thing I will need to get used – referring to him in the past tense. He was a gift to anyone who had a chance to know him. My life is forever changed by Heath Landon.

Thank you for reading and for all the heartfelt comments on my Facebook page, private messages, calls and friendship. I have read every single message and they have helped. I will be looking for your help as I start my long and winding road towards….I don’t know…healing. I don’t know if I will ever be healed. A new normal, let’s call it that as the life I have had for the past two years will never be the same.

Heath – you knew this because I told you often – Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.

Live your best life,

Lisa

For anyone that has ever wanted to become a travel agent, I would dare you to work through a day or week during the imminent arrival of a hurricane. Sounds like a silly thing, but a natural disaster, a terror attack, any event plays a huge part in how my industry operates its business.

Preparation

We live in an instant global world today. More today than ever before. I remember flying to Ft. Lauderdale in August 1992, pre computers, pre world wide web, pre cell phones. Booked a convertible, upgraded to an ocean view room at the Sheraton Yankee Clipper. Arrived at the hotel to Armageddon in the lobby. People looked at us like we were crazy…don’t you know the Hurricane Andrew is arriving in the next two days? Uh, no. We had insurance but we couldn’t get a flight out of south Florida at that point. What were we going to do? I remember saying very loudly to my friend – “I am on vacation, I am NOT staying in a shelter”. That was twenty-something me.

Compassion

This week has been a true test of patience and understanding. I understand that you may have a trip booked leaving on September 22nd and you want to know what is going to happen to your trip before the storm even hits the island you are scheduled to go to. Call after call was the same – we have nothing to report yet as the storm hasn’t even hit yet. We are working on people who are supposed to leave this weekend, and more importantly the ones who are there and we need to get them home.

Aggression

There are customers that are leaving this coming week – September 13th for example that are battling a range of emotions that, out of those emotions are causing people to act in ways that are probably not the norm. I was just told that I am holding a customer hostage because she doesn’t want to go to in war zone and I refuse to give her money back to her. She is scheduled to go to Varadero Cuba which, from all accounts is one of the areas that thankfully was not heavily damaged from Irma. With this specific supplier they are allowing changes (not refunds) for passengers travelling up to September 12th. She is leaving on the 13th. She is not entitled to make changes or cancellations…yet. That could change as the reports come in from the suppliers.

Sympathy and Empathy

People were flown home on dozens of relief flights this week. Air Canada, WestJet, Air Transat and Sunwing brought thousands of travellers home to Canada and out of harms way. The way these clients have acted upon their return is, to me a social experiment. There are was one couple who came to the office straight from the airport to tell us about their experience getting on the relief flight. How the staff was helping everyone, how they were boarding up the hotel and taking care of the people, all while they are trying to stay safe at home. There was another couple that came back from the same island, on a different flight and showed up asking for a refund on their loss of two days. I understand that you “lost” two days of vacation, but you were also emergency repatriated back to your home, where you have a roof over your head, food and comfort and not stuck in a boarded up hotel riding out a category 5 hurricane. I wonder what the total overall costs for the relief flights was, not to mention all the refunds they have to give for all the passengers that didn’t get to travel to their planned vacations.

Responsibility

We cannot control the weather. What we can control is how we protect our investments. A travel industry friend just wrote this on my Facebook page – “I still don’t understand how-we insurance everything else, including our lives, to the hilt (for the most) and when it comes time for travel insurance-it’s scoffed off as a non necessity, or we are ‘trying to make a fast buck’ until the shit hits the fan (so to speak) and then it’s everyone’s fault-except the person who declined it in the first place…..sigh”. She is 100% right.  How many times I have discussed travel insurance in my blog posts? Travel agents are mandated by law in Ontario to offer every client insurance. If you decline, you take your investment into your own hands.

We are still working through the wrath of Irma, and we have Jose following her tail, not to mention earthquakes in Mexico. Oh, and Katia…she is the wicked little sister swirling around as well.

I have always said there is never a dull day in the travel industry. I guess you could say that for life in general.