Summer of 1976

As I’ve watched the flags appear, the patriotic displays go up, and the Fourth of July approach once again, I’ve found myself thinking about another summer.

I was twelve years old.

My family and I piled into a Winnebago motorhome and headed across the country for what would become one of the most memorable trips of my childhood. My dad had planned it for years. The destination was Philadelphia, the birthplace of America, during the Bicentennial celebration.

Looking back now, I realize that trip wasn’t unusual for our family.

Travel was already in our blood.

My grandfather worked for the United States Department of Agriculture, which meant frequent relocations and travel. My dad and his brother spent part of their childhood living in a trailer and traveling the country before eventually settling in Los Angeles during their high school years.

When my dad grew up, started a family, and began building his career as an engineer at KHJ Radio, he wanted to give his children the same sense of adventure he had experienced.

So he bought a motorhome.

At the time, I thought we were just going on vacations.

Now I understand something different.

My dad wasn’t simply taking us camping.

He was teaching us.

Every summer trip had a purpose.

There were amusement parks and water parks, of course. Four kids demanded a little fun. But there were also national parks, museums, historical landmarks, radio stations, and places that carried stories larger than ourselves.

We visited Yosemite.

We stood beneath Mount Rushmore.

We toured Washington, D.C.

We explored New York City.

And in 1976, we traveled to Philadelphia to celebrate America’s 200th birthday.

Some memories have faded with time.

Others remain surprisingly clear.

I still remember driving through Philadelphia in that motorhome. I remember the excitement of being there during such a historic year. I remember seeing the Liberty Bell and staring at the famous crack that had become part of its story.

Like most families traveling on a budget, we were each allowed one souvenir.

There were four kids, after all.

The souvenir I chose was an amber-colored glass bank shaped like the Liberty Bell.

For decades, that little bank followed me through different homes, different careers, different seasons of life. It was one of those small treasures that somehow survives long after the trip itself has ended.

I often wonder what happened to it.

What I do know is that the lesson remained.

My dad understood something important.

Experiences last longer than possessions.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

He was teaching us history.

He was teaching us curiosity.

He was teaching us to pay attention to stories.

He was teaching us that learning didn’t stop when school let out for the summer.

And perhaps without realizing it, he was helping shape the person I would eventually become.

A broadcaster.

A therapist.

A writer.

A traveler.

A storyteller.

One memory still makes me smile.

Apparently there were horse-drawn carriage rides available for tourists.

My dad took one look at the price and declared it a ripoff.

We did not ride in the carriage.

Some things never change.

As I sit here today in my own RV, preparing for another season of travel, writing, and adventure, I can’t help but appreciate the thread connecting it all.

My grandfather traveled.

My dad traveled.

I traveled.

My children traveled.

Now my grandchildren are experiencing the same kind of adventures.

Five generations connected by roads, stories, and a willingness to see what lies beyond the next horizon.

Maybe that’s why life on the road never felt unusual to me.

It felt like home.

And every Fourth of July, when I see the flags waving and hear people talking about America’s birthday, my mind still drifts back to that summer in 1976, when a twelve-year-old girl stood in Philadelphia, staring at the Liberty Bell, completely unaware of how many stories still waited for her down the road.

A Personal Note

Twenty years ago this month, my life changed forever.

You are a miracle. I am a miracle.

I’ve been on quite a personal journey—one of surrender and self-discovery. I often tell people that I didn’t have a midlife crisis. Instead, a midlife crisis had me.

My life path was disrupted when my heart began to fail.

Over Fourth of July weekend twenty years ago, I found myself curled up on the couch wondering why I felt so terrible. One more day of lying there might have made the difference between life and death.

Had I not decided—incorrectly, as it turns out—to self-diagnose what I thought was causing my symptoms and seek emergency medical attention, I could very well have suffered a stroke, cardiac arrest, or the phrase that struck me the hardest: cardiac death.

The very fact that you are reading these words means you are part of my miracle journey.

That journey eventually became my first book, Heart Lessons, a prescriptive memoir about healing in the midst of heart failure and learning to follow your heart through crisis, recovery, faith, grief, and surrender.

Throughout July, I’ll be sharing excerpts from Heart Lessons and reflecting on what those lessons mean to me twenty years later.

This week’s Heart Lesson comes from Chapter One: Lessons in Surrendering.

This Week’s Heart Lesson

I’m a quitter. There is no one who knows me that would dare to define me that way. I keep trying until I get it right, but my heart failure was out of control. Although I didn’t want to quit, the depression and feelings of defeat upon learning how rebellious my heart was caused me to begin to learn to surrender. I had to give up trying to have power over it.

Continue the Journey

This week’s video expands on the story behind my heart failure journey and the first lesson I learned along the way: surrender.

If you’d like to read the full story, I’m giving away a free digital copy of my first book, Heart Lessons: A Story of Healing in the Midst of Heart Failure That Will Inspire You to Follow Your Heart.

If you’re navigating a life transition, career change, grief journey, health challenge, or simply trying to figure out what’s next, I also offer complimentary confidential consultations.

Before you go, I’d love to hear from you:

What experience from your childhood shaped who you became, even if you didn’t recognize it at the time?

Leave a comment and join the conversation.