On Sunday, after getting back to my hostel from a walking tour around Manila, I got the sad news that my grandmother had passed away suddenly.

Anyone who has ever been away from home when something like this happens knows that it’s a tough and lonely place to be, and my ‘to-do’ list for the day went from “What am I going to have for dinner?” to “Do I stay here? Do I got home? Will I regret it if I don’t go home? If I do go home what will my insurance plan cover? How do I cancel the 3 flights I have scheduled in the next week and a half? How am I going to get myself back to Asia?”

I pretty much knew straight away that I was going home. It really wasn’t a question for me. My grandmother and I were pretty close and I wanted to be home to support my family and to say my goodbyes.

By the time this posts I’ll be getting ready to board a 20 hour flight back to Boston via Tokyo, Japan. Surprisingly inexpensive for a next day, halfway around the world ticket.

Before I left for my trip I did purchase travel insurance through World Nomads which supposedly covers ‘trip interruption’ due to the death of a family member. Time will tell if they honor this and I get refunded for my cancelled flights and the flight back home.

Therefore I’ll be back in the States for a while; I’m not sure at the moment exactly how long. As long as necessary I suppose.

From there I think instead of traveling all the way back to Asia I may end up continuing on to Europe, a place I’ve wanted to travel more extensively for some time now. I’ll update more on that later once I’ve figured everything out.

It’s going to be a long, rough week or so but when life hands you one hell of a curve ball all you can do is roll with the punches. You take each day as they come and trust that all will work out.

Doing Jell-O shots at my college graduation party with pinky finger up - typical 🙂

At the very least I’m thankful that I got to speak with my grandmother the day before she passed away. I had called before my flight from Boracay to Manila to wish her a Merry Christmas as I hadn’t been able to get a hold of her on the actual day. We talked about what she did for the holiday, what my future plans were, and how busy and behind on things she was (she was always busy and behind on things). She loved my Christmas present (a framed picture of me on my way to Everest Base Camp) and kept bringing it down to dinner with her friends to show it around. She sounded great and was so glad to hear from me, so it was quite a shock when I got that call from my family the next day. But we got to talk one last time which I’m extremely glad for.

Today would have been her birthday and instead of spending it with us she gets to spend it with my grandfather. Hopefully somewhere where all the letters she has to write and all the mail she has to answer gets done for her so she never has to get behind on things again. Although knowing her she’d still insist on doing it all herself.