Welcome to Big Blend Radio's Food, Wine and Travel Show where we go across country and travel the world with members of the International Food Wine Travel Writers Association. Let's go. Welcome everybody, every, what is it? Every third Monday, yep, we get to travel the country or around the world with the International Food Wine Travel Writers Association where we get to chat with their members. And today we have Sandy Bornstein joining us. She is a Colorado-based travel writer, freelance travel writer, and an author. She is the author of "May This Be the Best Year of Your Life?" And that's if you are looking at living outside of America, being an expat. And I know a lot of people doing it, and we've done it, and it's fun, so you should try it if you want to. So we're going to talk a little bit about her work. Also, her other book is an award-winning book called "100 Things to Do in Boulder Before You Die." And today, we're going to talk about death a little bit. We're going to talk about travel and the grieving process. You can keep up with Sandra. Go to SandraBornstein.com and also the travelingbornsteins.com. The links are all in the episode notes, including a couple of links to articles she has written about traveling through grief. So welcome. How are you, Sandra? Fine. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa, for allowing me to share my story. I'm glad you are coming on to the show to talk about grief is a very personal process, and it's complex, and just when you think you're over it, you're not. And so it's one of those things that everyone deals with it in a different way, but I love the fact that you are continuing to travel since the passing of your husband. You just keep going, you know, and I think there's different ways to travel, and it's going to go according to each person, right, on how they do this, but do you think it's helped you? Because I know people who, I know when I've lost people that, I mean, one was a musician that was very dear to me, very close, and we were in a band together. And when he passed, I could barely listen to music, which is the opposite, normally it's my salvation. But because we had done so much with so much music, and written and listened and critiqued, anytime a song came on that I know that we knew, it was very difficult. And then all of a sudden, I wanted, like, then I was like a fiend, and I just wanted so much music. It was weird. So is that the same kind of thing for travel as well as, like, instead of being in the same spot where everything reminds you of the person is to kind of create new memories? It's a very interesting question, because initially I thought that if I chose places that I'd been to before, I would have these flashback moments where waves of grief would take me, take over, and it becomes super emotional. And obviously, as fellas during the first year of grieving, I wanted to minimize the amount of embarrassing moments in public, believe me, I have plenty of moments in my home when I have crying spells. But so the first trip I decided to take was something totally different than anything I'd ever done before, hoping that it wouldn't create any issues with me. And it was relatively early in the process. Within weeks of my husband's death, he had suffered significantly. So I dealt with anticipatory grief for a long period of time. So he had had a traumatic brain injury in 2010 from a skiing accident. And then about 10 years later, well, traditional doctors don't link the dots together, non-traditional medical providers, it's too much of a coincidence. He developed terminal brain cancer, also known as glioblastoma. And he suffered from that for three years, all of which it was during COVID and we continued to travel, even though he underwent a craniotomy, emo and radiation, along with radiation. And when we were relatively fine for two and a half years, and then when it came back when the tumor recurred, it was in an operable place. And life became a spiral data control pretty quickly. So our travel opportunities became less and less. So fortunately during that whole period of COVID, most people worry about COVID and didn't travel. We continued to travel with the fear of COVID as well as, and at any moment, anything terrible. There were a lot of things that could have gone wrong with them while we were traveling. And we traveled overseas. We traveled all over the place. So I, the long and short of it, shortly after he died, as a travel writer, I get a lot of promotional information. And I had this notification from UTA World advertising solo fairs. And as many of your viewers know, the cruise industry doesn't necessarily cater to solo travelers. And oftentimes I want you to pay a supplement or sometimes pay for the second person who is in the cabin. I thought, wow, I can go on a trip and not have to pay for my husband, or pay some supplement. Should I do this? And then I saw the window of opportunity was just a few months out, because it was a flash sale that we're trying to sell cabins. So I was like, hmm, am I going to be ready? Am I, you know, can I handle this? Can I travel to Europe by myself from the United States? So I figured, well, this is what travel insurance is for. I had never done travel insurance, allowing you to get out for any reason. And in depth, since since it was only my fear, it was it was very reasonably priced for any reason. I think within, and it was like 36 or 48 hours before departure, I said, okay, but then I should know whether I should be able to handle this. So I booked the cruise. And then I had buyers remorse, I was like, oh my God, what am I doing? I'm going to go traveling. I'm a new widow. How am I going to do this? I can barely function. Some days were harder than others. And I kept on telling myself, I can do what I can do, I can do this. And my kids were very supportive by four sons. They were very supportive. I wasn't sure if they thought, you know, what they would think that I was traveling so, so quickly. Most of my friends were very supportive. And the day came, the Uber arrived at my house and I had some trepidation getting into the Uber. But I took this wonderful, remarkable ride cruise in October. My husband died in July, all by myself. I spent a couple of days in Basel by myself exploring the city. Used one of my contacts, who used to be in the Swiss industry is now in another location. Used him as a, how to, how to, were the best place for me to stay with in Basel. Had a great time, the boat, I wasn't a field, but there was a significant number of other solo passengers. Many of them were widows. Some of them were divorced. They were single by choice. And I had, I don't know, an incredible time considering I was grieving. I didn't go to the nighttime activities. I didn't feel like live music, I didn't feel like being around people too much. But I took every short excursion I could, did everything I possibly could. And I wasn't, to be honest with you, I wasn't sure how I would be. So I had four books with me in case I wanted to stay in my cabinet and not socialize. You know, it was unpredictable, it was unchartered waters. But I, from that experience, I came home, I didn't know, empowered to a certain extent. Knowing that it was possible for me to travel on an early stage in the grieving process. And that it was good for me to start seeing good things in life, joy. Because my life had been taken over by anticipatory grief for so long, had been overrun by intense grief when my husband passed away. And now I can start to see that, yeah, I can enjoy life. And so it was great, I think it was really good that I chose a place that was totally different from anything that I had done with my husband. One exception we had, one of the stops wasn't Frankfort and I'd been there on a media trip. And so I was a little bit nervous when I got off the boat and wandered around in Frankfort and how I'd be, but it was okay, I mean, I mean it's okay, there were certain things that I remembered and that would elicit good memories, because I had good memories of that trip. And that was fine. I was able to handle it and the hard part for me was I had always traveled either with my husband or on a media trip with other people to share. So at night when I go back to my cabin, it was hard because nobody did to share the days events. That's what I was going to say. That would be the hard part. But once you go through that, you start to learn about yourself and like you can do things on your own. You know what I mean? Not saying that you can't do things on your own, not saying that you're not able or you know what I mean? And it's not codependency either. It is just you're used to someone by your side that you shared moments with, right? And memories with, and then to do it on your own, it's like you want to turn around and you're used to even just those actions. All those little things you're used to doing. Or things are wrong or you get confused in an airport or you get confused when you're wandering around just an unfamiliar town. And you have the second person to say like, which way should we go? What should we do? Yeah. Now I had to be very aware that it was up to me. Maybe there could be other people in either good Samaritans or fellow passengers who could help me. But I had to be more cognizant of my capabilities. And like I said, it wasn't like I couldn't do that. But you have to understand, I mean, not unique, but unlike many of the people of my generation who waited to get married, I'm married as my husband as a teenager. So I married my husband when I was in college. So basically I went from a dorm room to living with my husband and then suddenly he was gone. So even a simple thing, even though I have read, you know, the brain fog is kind of interesting. You don't necessarily process everything as you normally would. So I read what the weather was going to be on this cruise. It was mid October. So it was going to be chilly in Europe. I didn't bring all the appropriate things like gloves, scarves, those kind of things because we were going to go be on the deck to watch the cancels. So Frankfurt was before, it was the Amsterdam, I mean it was Basel to Amsterdam. So when I stopped in Frankfurt, I knew pretty soon I was going to be going to be, had to be outside. I was going to, the forecast was not very favorable. So when I was in Frankfurt, I had to go look for gloves and for a hat because I didn't, I knew I would freeze otherwise, even though I'm a Coloradoan. And what can I say, I was like, oh my God, am I can do this? And so silly, I should be able to go shopping, but I was so used to going with my husband, I figured out that people on the ship told me where to go, where the shopping district was. Surprisingly, they knew much, much choices, but I did find what I needed. So it was sufficiently clothed when I just stood outside. Most of the people went inside, it was, it was pretty cold, but they served, they gave you blankets and hot cocoa when it was, you know, fun experience. But you know, I think this is great because it's kind of like a new chapter of your life in a way that you have to look at and still have those memories. And now traveling, do you travel with other writers at all or are, you know, are you still kind of going solo on places? The first year I splurged because I can't keep up at this pace. I took two other trips to Europe, I also took a trip to a wellness resort in, in, in South Carolina. Yeah. And, you know, I'm a grandma of seven, and I skied 35 times, that's the luxury of living in Colorado. It's more than I ever skied before. Skiing was my husband's passion, more so than mine. I know that, you know, my days of doing it are limited. So I kind of maybe went overboard, but I, skiing and grieving, I actually wrote two stories about that. It's like a niche. Was a wonderful way for me to deal with my grief, because think about it. I was outside, I chose my days, mostly in the sunshine. I was active, which is really good for the chemicals, the chemical imbalance that happens when you're grieving. And the social isolation was solved, because I could randomly talk to people on the lifts. I might never see them again, but I didn't have to spend whole days all by myself. And some of those people I did become friends with. And then I eventually found, it took a while, found 55 plus groups that I could ski with. In particular, there's a wonderful group at Capa Resort, which I also wrote about. And there's a less formal wanted at T. Stone Resort, because I ski in Summit County, Colorado. And the grief, you know, the grief was, to certain extent minimized, because I could get my frequent doses of, you know, sunshine activity. Yeah, sunshine does everything, man. And I had a great time. In the middle of that, I decided I didn't know where, just, there was this stuff. I need to go to an ocean. Why do I want to go to an ocean? Well, oceans were very soothing. Why not? And my husband and I always loved going to the ocean. More me. He didn't like the sun that much. So I said, okay, I didn't want to spend a lot of money. Hawaii was too pricey, California was kind of pricey, because this was February. Florida was pricey. So I found a wellness place, I picked, I was just like, what am I going to do at a resort? In knowing in the center of myself, I'm going to eat by myself, where can I go or I potentially am around others? And while my husband was dying, we had gone to two wellness resorts in the West, one in Utah and one in Arizona. And I remembered from those experiences that there were a lot of women traveling by themselves. And sometimes they would eat together. So that was perfect. I found Hilton have health and I went there. Most people there for weight loss. I was just there for recuperation and I guess a break from skiing and to be at the ocean. But like you said, would I be able to handle some place where I'd been before? I had been to Hilton head before. I didn't realize I didn't look at a map. How close it was to a media trip that I had taken to Hilton head before COVID. So the beach, the wellness place took us to every morning for our sunrise walks was the same place where I'd stayed with my husband. First day, here I am in a bus of 10 or 12 other people, barely knew these people. We pull up to the resort where I had stayed several years before and I'm like Sandy, keep you. Yeah. Keep yourself together. You can't have a meltdown with these people that you just met. And I was able to control it, but it was really interesting. I had a paradoxical reaction and so they having a meltdown, I felt comfort there. I went every morning for these sunrise walks. I rented a bicycle, it was about a mile and a half away, went back to the beach because if anybody's been to Hilton head, you know the sand is compressed. So it's beautiful to ride on during low tide. And so I go back there every day when I wanted a break from the wellness stuff. And then one day they brought us back for like a sunset walk. I did Tai Chi on the beach there. Nice. I was in a really good place when I came back from Hilton head. That's awesome. I was just energized. And then subsequently, I'm at, I just celebrated recently in Jewish tradition it's called York side. It was the first day, you know, the outside is an anniversary of a person's death. I recently celebrated the anniversary of my husband's death and it was my goal. To do as much travel as I could during this first year. And so I rounded out the year. I took a Mediterranean cruise as well as another riverboat cruise to actually the Venetian lagoons and both of those places included lots of places that I've been to with my husband, Kyra, and I was able to handle both of those trips remarkably well. The Mediterranean cruise was actually a cruise we had booked together. I wasn't so sure how that was going to be booked together. And I had a wonderful time on that cruise. And this most recent Venetian lagoon trip was in June, beginning of July. And on that trip, there was just, once again, that was a solo supplement wafer trip through Yoda World. And that boat had quite a few of widows and people and some women traveling by themselves. And we were able to bond and have a really nice group. I never had to eat alone. That's nice. There were two people that I knew and I had an incredible time. What can I tell you? And so I'm learning that, yes, I have my moments, I'm going to brief my, like you said, grief never goes away. Grief is part of a lot, especially when you lose somebody that you've married to from us five decades. I think what happens is you learn, if you just get better at dealing with it. Yeah. I think that's it. It gets a little bit softer. It's not as harsh. It's hard, once again, to go back to cabin by yourself. And you've changed routines a bit too, and that's the thing. You know, or when I sit back and I reflect, and what I do, which I've been doing for a long time, is that I create books of manuscripts, which also helps me, well, it's multi-folded. It gives my grandkids something to look at to see what their grandma does, as well as my kids. It's been more my grandkids. My grandkids like to look at this. But it also helps me, oftentimes I go back and I write about things, sometimes shortly after I experience them, but sometimes I recap things and go back. So I'm able to remember things better, because each of my trips have one of these books. And so especially now that my husband's gone, I mean, I'm really glad I started doing this. I'd say, I don't know, probably 12, 15 years ago is when I first started doing it. So I've got tons of these, is a travel writer, you know, I've taken a look at it. Yeah, you can't. Because that's the thing I was going to say, as travel writers, we're all that ill-cove. We travel and we want everyone to know, we're just, we can't shut up about our travels, right? None of us can. We're like, you know, hey, we went here and you must do this. Like, if you say, if you tell any travel writers, like Iftwa, you know, if you go on the site, hey, I'm going here. You're going to get a response. Make sure you do this. Make sure you see that. And then it's like, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. And then you go do it. And then you want to pass it on to everyone. So even like your travel has changed, you know, with your husband being by your side, but then, you know, there's media trips and things too. But I also think the beauty of travel during grief is it changes routine. It's a pattern interrupt because death is a pattern interrupt of what is going on. And so to go back to the usual routine is very painful. It's like if you wake up every morning and you both have coffee and read a newspaper together, that's going to be, that's, I mean, you want to get rid of that. Or sometimes you want to go back to it, right? Because it's kind of in and out. It's interesting that you said that because when I came back from a latest trip, it was almost a Debbie downer, but I'd had such a good time. And then I walked into my house and reality hit. Okay. I am back to the reality that I'm here by myself. There's, you know, for the present time, I don't have, you know, I do have travel riding, but I don't have a, you know, a job or whatever to keep me occupied all day long. And I started thinking, okay, where is travel going to fit into my life? And where is my life going? Because am I running away or running to travel? You know, what is what is going on here? Because why did I need to kind of say escape, but it is, travel is a form of escape. It's us. It's learning, learning about college, running, experiencing, but it's also escaping from your day to day life. I can't afford to travel to Europe, you know, three times a year and ski that much and do all these things. So what am I going to do with my life? And I, and I decided that I have to focus now on creating community because when my husband was dying and even when he had the traumatic brain injury, he became withdrawn, so my social circus decreased. And then that was somewhat exasperated because when he was dying, we traveled extensively so we were never home because I knew we were on a very short, we, he was given 12 to 18 months and he lived three years. So we do impact a lot. We went. It's like every time there's an extra month. Let's go. Oh, we went. Yeah. We went everything from, we went to a dude. We went horseback riding in the wintertime at a dude ranch. He hung upside down doing aerial yoga at a wellness resort. We were in Hawaii, Florida. We went to Iceland. We went to Israel. We went to Spain and Portugal. We went on several. But you know, but this is so, I mean, really, we, we have to live life, you know, while we have it. We have to live live life, but then I realized I can't do that. It's not sustainable now that, you know, he was the show. So it's not sustainable. So I've waited a year and I've, and everybody said, don't sell anything, don't do anything major, but I've decided where I live, there's not a sense of community. So I'm going to move to, you know, I'm not old, but I'm going to a 55 plus, I'm going to sell my home. I'm in the process of selling my home and move to a 55 plus community. And then travel will be a continue to be part of my life, but I think it's also important for me to, at this point in time, and not everybody, some people are content with it. I have to have a fresh start and I have to, I have to reestablish who I am because remember, I was that 18 year old girl, I mean, girl, my husband, I now have to figure out who I am and what I'm going to do. And I saw through travel that it is possible to have joy again, and I am capable of doing things on my own, organizing, functioning, handling missteps, whatever happened, whatever came my way, I was able to handle, but I also have to figure out what I'm going to do day to day. And it wasn't an easy decision, but I figured now is the time to do it, and I'm young enough to do it, and I'll still figure out, not really sure, I really have no idea where I'm going to travel to. Next, I shouldn't say that, one of my sons said to me, "Mom, you know, let's see who wants to go to celebrate my birthday since September, and so let's do a family trip." Unfortunately, the other sons, my other three sons, it's not convenient for them, but I'm going to go away for my birthday with one of my kids and his two little kids. Cool. So it's a traditional travel trip, which I've done several of. And then I'll sort of see, but in the process, I'm kind of busy because I'm going to be selling my house. See, but that's all pattern interrupt too. So it's like setting, starting fresh, and that doesn't mean you're forgetting your husband. It doesn't mean it just is, "Hey, now it's something new," which kind of really, it's relieving. Honestly, it is when he starts, when he goes somewhere new, like I had a friend whose husband passed, and we knew he was terminal, and it was pretty quick. But they knew as soon as terminal, they moved to a smaller house, so financially, you know, all of that. And then it was like, then later remarried, my friend remarried, never thinking it would ever happen, but it did. And to kind of change it all up, they moved so that they could have a fresh start because they were still in the same house, you know what I mean? It was just kind of a fresh start, and it's not forgetting. It's not forgetting whatsoever. It is actually just going, "Okay," and then when you do that, you're allowing it to be memories that are the ones you really want to remember, right, yet while you're doing your own thing and being stronger as just you, you know what I mean? So it's like you're starting a new life, but it's a, I think, travels everything. You discover more about yourself in different situations, you're out of your comfort zone every single time you travel. Every time you get in your car, you're out of your comfort zone because you never know what's going to happen, right? So it's-- And it's the people we meet along in the 30, what can I tell you? It's not just the places that we see on this last trip. That particular river, both, there were people from Australia, there were people from throughout Europe, quite a few from the UK. And of course, Americans. If it's Americans from all over the place, all, you know, from the east to the south to the north, there were people that I met. And so I find travel to, it's not just necessarily the destinations you go to or the culture, the history you learn about or the activities that you do. It's the people you travel with and also the people you meet, the locals. I've got some very interesting local people who have enriched my life in terms of what I've learned about their way of life, the foods they eat, the customs they, and the traditions they have. And I've learned so much in the process and my life is so much more enriched by all of these experiences. And I think that's why I think my grandkids are just-- they're always thumbing through my albums, because like, "Rama, what's this? Like, where's this? You know, when did you do this?" And I recently did a very large one of these books, you know, "Shutterfly Books," to memorialize my husband's life for his year anniversary and also his birthday is August 19th, which I believe when this shows broadcast. And I sent one to my mother-in-law, my mother-in-law's still alive. She's 95 years old and lives in in suburban Chicago. And she was just like, "Wow, look at all these pictures," because I harvested pictures from her collection, starting from his birth pictures to the very end. And it's 100 pages long, kind of showing different things we did as a family-- different things he did as a youth, different things we did when before we had a family than our family life. And then there were probably-- there were a lot of pictures on those pages. I think there were like 16 or 20 pictures on those pages, but several pages of all the travels we did. There was so much-- it was very well done. And then he was a very prominent lawyer who argued successfully for the US Supreme Court. So a little bit of information about his legal background. And then at the end, I tried to-- interviewed him at the end trying to get-- create a living will. It was hard, because by that time, he had become more and more withdrawn. But I have some really good things that he said, and he reiterated what the matter that we used while he was dying, and I'm kind of living with it now, like keep moving and live without regrets. Because that's part of the travel message. If you stay at home and never explore the world, I think your life is very limited. Yes. I get it. Some people-- some people are financially possible or physically not possible or maybe they're afraid. There's various reasons why you can't travel. Then at least read about it or watch about it. Yes. So there's plenty of ways that you can learn about other places to enrich your life. You don't necessarily have to be there, or you're going to have somebody like me talk to you about all the places. Well, that's exactly it. I mean, it's-- you can't go everywhere, and we do a lot with national parks. We travel full-time documenting parks, public lands. But not everyone can go to some of these parks and public lands. And not-- the parks can't handle everybody in the parks, right? So there's even a movement to get the parks outside the parks so that, you know, if you can't go to Yellowstone, well, I'm going to tell you about Yellowstone and the bison, the buffalo, whichever one you want to say. So you kind of-- it's important because travel is humbling, and it makes you realize just how grand and big the world is. And yet it also teaches you how small the world is and how connected we actually are. No matter where, like you're talking about the groups of people that you meet on these kinds of excursions, I think are fantastic because, you know, there's therapy groups, right? No matter what you're going through in life, there's some kind of group you can go to. And often, you're sitting in a circle, everybody's crying and eating cookies and drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, maybe. I don't know if they do that anymore. But it's kind of a-- I think they're very helpful and necessary. But it's better to kind of go on an adventure where you're having something else to talk about as well that's moving forward. You know, I feel like sometimes-- because it's different for everyone, really. Groups where you're all sitting in the same thing, it's almost like force grieving. I can't explain it, but I think it's really helpful. But do you know what I mean? It's just a different kind of connection, you know? I know. Each of these trips, maybe because I didn't know my husband, this is also an interesting point, is a solo traveler. When you travel with a companion or a spouse, you know, most of your attention is focused on them, unless you maybe have a group that you've traveled with, maybe it's more than just one person. So I want to say I didn't really pay attention to other people. We casually meet people, but didn't really-- I would say necessarily listen to everything they said because I had my husband. As a solo passenger, I became more tuned in to other people. And for the first time, in a very, very long time, I can't remember how many, maybe before I've ever married him, everybody had some kind of message. I had to take away. Despite everybody that I met, there was something significant that I learned from that person. I mean, I met a training crew, and this is odd, and I can't explain because I've talked to somebody who does numbers, and this doesn't make any sense. So I was going for less than two weeks. During that period of time, I met four ladies, four ladies, and maybe how many people could I talk to at any length to gather this information, maybe the most 40 or 50 people that even though I came across like 2,000 or 3,000 people before the ship, but I didn't talk to all of them. So I felt I came across four ladies who had either-- one lady had lost her best friend to glioblastoma, and three others had lost their husband to glioblastoma. Whoa. Now, glioblastoma-- That's not that common. --that they're breaking, so that only from what statistics tell me, 10 to 15,000 cases each year in the United States. Obviously, I don't know the worldwide figure. So you're talking about a very small population of people, and they die relatively quickly. And you know, it's famous people like John McCain have died from it, bow-byed and died from it. They're their famous people that have died from it, but the numbers are very small. And to be pure, they came across four people who were touched by this terrible disease. Each of them gave me something significant to walk away with. It's very powerful, very, very powerful. And they all came from different countries, too. I love that. I love that. And the world is kind of interesting, because I can't explain it. Nobody can explain to me why these people came into my life, but they made a difference in my life, just like the five or six ladies that I dined with every day in the Venetian Lagoons. They made an impact on me. Whether I see any of these people, again, ever in my life, I don't know, someone I'm corresponding with, but they're helping me through the journey. That's awesome. And if I stayed in my home, our state and my community, and didn't venture very far during the first year, my life would not have been enriched like this. I feel very lucky, very fortunate that I spent the money, it was a lot more money than I wanted to spend, but that I did it for myself, because I think my husband would be very proud of me. That I didn't throw in the towel and, like, grief, dominate, take me over. Many of the widows I'll tell you that I met on these journeys were very surprised that I could get out of my house the first year and get an airplane by myself, and not with a travel companion or with a group. All these trips I went by myself, they went totally solo. And they said, because the grief was so overwhelming, it just sucked them in. And it's documented, the chemicals in your brain get about kind of screwed up. And so it's very hard to fight it. But I was determined that I didn't want to take drugs, you know, some people do that, or I didn't want to be a recluse or become morbid, that I was going to fight it, and I was going to live life to the fullest, because that's what life is about. I like that. I like that about you. You have to live life. And fortunately, I had the avenue of skiing and travel. If people don't have that, then, like I said, you can watch things about travel. You can read things about travel, or you can go to different restaurants in your local town and taste different ethnic foods, and it's kind of like a vicarious way of traveling. So there's different ways that you can enrich your life and kind of, as you said, mix it up so that, you know, you don't get stuck, because that's what happens with anticipatory grief, you kind of get stuck, because you know it's eventually going to come. And then when... And everyone thinks, "Oh, well, you knew it was coming." I actually think it's almost worse. It's actually worse because when it does come, it's about here's reality. Yeah. Well, my mom's brother, who she was very close to, got murdered, and it was on the news right in front of us, and I'll never forget that day, and you could see his body being put into the ambulance, and he had been shot. And it was the largest industrial shooting in Florida ever. And they found him, thanks to America's Most Wanted. And so she was just, I mean, it was not something you could just snap up and get over. And we had just started our magazine, and so in the late '90s, '97, '98, and we travel a lot. I mean, we've lived all over in Africa and all of that, and there she was, like the next day, not getting out of bed, and I'm like, "Uh-oh, this is not good," because she is completely not a person. And then her best friend, who she'd seen on and off, you know, when we lived in South Africa and Kenya, got brain cancer, and her best friend, so she got out of bed, and started driving up to a different town where we were living in Southern California, and go and see her, and the cancer had taken over so much she could barely even hold her head up. And she was, and it was really, it was, but it meant the world to her. And so they kept meeting each other, and then her best friend died within six months of her brother. And so it was a very hard time, you know, because sometimes there's also guilt, survivors guilt kind of thing, especially with her brother. So she went through all of this, and I could see this is not this, you know, she's going away, you know what I mean? And so we'd go up to the mountain town of Julian, which we ended up living in. And so we'd get away, we'd go for a hike in the mountains, and she'd start to come back to life. And I used to play music up there, and it was her birthday, and I'm like, "Well, let's go up to the mountain, and we'll go see our friends," and whatever. She's like, "I don't know, no, no, no. Come on, let's go. We'll go for a hike. We did all that." And that night, and she knew it was like music night, what he called it, the hoot night, it was like everybody comes and does an open mic, and it's fun. And out of the blue, I had friends come in from Mexico, I had friends come in from all over as a surprise party for her. And it totally just, first she was mad at me, she's like, "What the hell are you doing?" You know? Because it's, that's a reaction, right? And it was so cool because everybody, it just, it was very emotional for her too, because it was, you know, you know how it is, you know, it's like, you fall down, don't, don't make me cry when I fall down, you know, don't be kind to me, otherwise I'm going to cry. And you know, so it took a long time, it, it, even today, talking about it, like on shows, it's, she, she can't really, it's hard, but travel helps. You know, being out of nature like you talk about is, it was a solace, it's always been a solace. That's who we are as, as humans are, things as wildlife and nature and, you know, and when you've gone through that kind of loss, you have extra love that you give, especially like to animals, to people. There's this extra love that you were giving to somebody else that you now need to share with others. That's why the community part is so important, because if now you're not giving, that is actually the hardest part. So in grief process, you need to go back to giving that love you or giving to someone else that may have been a different kind of love, but to others. That's why the community, when you talk about that, it's so crucial. And when you can meet new people and give different kinds of care to each other, then it's like, this energy is what lifts you up and moves you forward, you know. Action is the antidote to despair, it's my favorite quote by Joan Baez. So I think you've done a good job of that. Now I do have a question, are you going to write more, maybe write a book about this, you've done a book on X-ray, and then telling people what to do in Boulder before they die. I mean, that's a good one for you. That was kind of one of those weird things in life, you know, COVID hit in March or whatever of 2020, and we were in India, and we ran back, obviously, very quickly. And then I started, like everybody else, watching these webinars, and Reedy Press was looking for writers. I know here's my book, and I was like, well, Josh, the publisher was talking. I was doing Google search, like, we're in Colorado, don't they have a book? I'm like, where would I like to write a book? And I saw that they say happy, done one for Boulder, and Boulder was special to me, because I went to school there, and that's where I met my husband. And so I wrote him a piece, not even done speaking, like, see, do you have a book of couples? You know, would you like a book? And he says, well, we have some of you might be interested, like a back tune, he got back to me, that person was no longer interested. So then I created a marketing proposal, and eventually won the contract to write the book. So that was, you know, maybe May, June, somewhere in that timeframe. In July, beginning of August is when my husband was diagnosed with glioblastoma, the end of July, and operated on in August. Wow. I was under contract to write this book, everything in Boulder was shutting down, because as you know, everything shut down everywhere, especially in university towns. And then I had a husband who knew was dying, but I didn't know what the future was going to bring. So I, like, just stopped working on the book, because I had a lot of other things to do. And I had two extensions on that book. One was, I blamed on COVID, the other, and my husband, really both were my husband. And then eventually my husband, Iris, said to me, the next deadline was coming, he said, you have to finish the book. I said, but there's a lot of places we have to go see, and it's still COVID, and it's not safe. He said, I'll take the risk. You have to finish the book. We'll go to the restaurants, but we'll go wherever. So we went and visited all the places I'd yet to go, crammed in a lot. We ended up, we actually ended up with COVID, because in mild cases, we were okay, even though he was in compromise, we were fine. And I finished the book. Sadly, it was published in the fall of 2022, and the beginning of 2023 is when the tumor was diagnosed, and his decline in the last six months was pretty swift, and he was, you know, totally dependent on me. So I didn't really market the book. It's marketed for like three or four months, and it is what it is. I hope to maybe market it. But this past year has been, I wasn't in a position, you know, you have to go market a book, and you're like, hey, you want to read my book? I can't do that. I just couldn't pull that off. So I have talked actually to developmental at the first one. My first book was about living in working in India as a teacher. That was another hat I wore in an international school, and the trials and tribulations and the lessons learned during that journey. And so I went back to the instrumental editor that helped me work on that, and we're kind of trying to figure out what direction I potentially might take, because he said whatever you want to do, it has to be uplifting, you know. How about a hundred places before you die? Just in general, since you've done so much travel, you know, and there's a story for that. I mean, look at all the places, just a hundred places before you die. So I don't know what I'm going to do, because, you know, once you have that writing bug in you, you have that desire to write. I didn't put it this way. I didn't think I'd write about grieving. I wasn't sure I would write again, because it took me many months, just like when my husband's first diagnosed, I couldn't write for good six months. The first start, he was diagnosed, like I said, in July. The first travel story I wrote was about skiing, actually, on New Year's Day, with my husband. After he had had, you know, a crème out of me, and chemo and radiation, and we went skiing on New Year's Day to start the year, and the same thing sort of happened here. I didn't really write for several months until I wasn't even sure I was going to write, but in the Jewish Chicago, I had approached them because that Rhine River cruise was a Jewish heritage cruise. And so I approached them if they wanted the Jewish content from that, or if they wanted something about the fact that it took place when the war in Israel just started. Instead, the editor came back and, you know, accepted, you know, that they would take a story from me in 600 words, which, you know, is not very much. Some words is very small. And what it was like to take my first trip as a grieving widow. I can't tell you how that was definitely a deficit assignment because I can't tell you how many days of thinking how I was going to do that, how that was going to pull that off. I did. I did. I eventually wrote it, and I was very happy with the piece that I wrote. It was very hard in 600 words, but I did pull it off. And then it got me thinking, well, maybe I should be writing more about this, because maybe there are people out there who need to be inspired that you don't necessarily have to sit in your home when you're a grieving widow. No. You shouldn't be partying with everyone carrying on. I get that. And I didn't feel like doing that. And even this last trip on the nation lagoon, one night when they had 70s music, I couldn't handle it. I just, you know, it was too much for me. I handled music on a large cruise ship, but it must have been the songs, like you said. Certain songs elicit certain memories. I have no idea. Actually, the captain in that ship, he gets a shout out to me. He saw that I was upset. He had me, and he embraced me, and he told me everything was going to be okay. He's very soothing to me, because you don't know that's the whole, I think one of the reasons why widows and maybe widowers or lesser extent are reluctant to go out in public. You don't know when something's going to cause you to have a meltdown, because these things are here. Yeah. I mean, my mom, Nancy, we went to a meeting, it was a chamber of commerce mixer at a botanical garden. I was in San Diego, and Sanita's botanical garden, I remember. She was feeling absolutely fine. And then she was talking to someone, and something reminded her of her brother, and she literally went down, like almost melted. She just started, you know, she was like, and the person who was talking, and he's a funny guy. It was talking about Oktoberfest and all of that, because I'll never forget that conversation. And he just kind of lifted her arms and lifted her back up, and just said, "It's okay." And we're going to keep talking, and you're going to be okay." And he had been through it. But I think it was really hard, especially when people were kind, because that makes it harder. Like, if people are kind, you know, you want them to be kind, but it elicits tears. It makes it harder, but it's like, there's an art to it, that grieving is a, it's a whole other lifestyle, actually, it is, you know, how to live with it. But I think you continue writing and traveling. I think that is phenomenal for folks to connect with you on that, because like we said, everyone's going to go through this at some point in their life. You know, whether it's a husband, a wife, a friend, you know, a colleague, you know, it's grief is grief, you know, and I think in reading, you know, it's very personal, and people can connect on that on their own how and when, and they can reread. You know what I mean? So I think you keep in on doing it. It's good. And I'm glad you came on the show today to talk about it here. I know that everyone, if to our ifwtwa.org is a website to go to. Definitely, you know, inspiring to hear, to keep writing, you know, it takes time, as you were saying, but to keep going with what your soul and passion is, it's very important. So I want to give everyone your websites again so that they can follow you. Thetravellingbornsteens.com and also Sandrabornsteens.com and go get 100 things to do in Boulder before you die. She needs to market it. So go get it. Okay, what can I tell you all the all the, all the things I had scheduled in 2023 had to be canceled. Well, it did when, it did when the NIT, NITJA, you know, honorable mention for a travel book. That's awesome. And, and I was recently acknowledged by, even though it's not a history book, there was a historical preservation society in Boulder in the summer that recognized my book and I received an award because I included history and culture in the book. But then again, I've got a bachelor's of master's degree in history. So, you know, it's something that I always try and bring to the table when I write about that. Awesome. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. I've appreciated the opportunity to share my story and hopefully, I sincerely hope that my words and my actions encourage people that are grieving to step outside of the comfort zone and perhaps use some form of travel, whether it's vicarious or actual travel, to enrich their lives to hopefully get through the grieving process. Absolutely. Thank you for listening to Big Blend Radio's Food One and Travel Show featuring members of the International Food One Travel Writers Association. We encourage you to visit their website. We say IFTWA, which is IFWTWA.org. You can also follow us at bigblendradio.com. Happy travels, everyone. [music] [music]
