Traveling can unleash and expose many different emotions from people: fear, anxiety, and excitement, among others. Since my mom passed away in July 2021, traveling has become healing for me.

There are a few places that I traveled to in the years since Mom passed away: Hershey, Pennsylvania (2021), Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi (2022), and Türkiye (2023). Each destination holds a significance to me for either being a bucket list destination or a sentimental connection to my mom.

In this article, I recap my joy of fulfilling my childhood dream to travel to Hershey, PA, a.k.a., Chocolate Town.

Hershey, Pennsylvania was the first vacation that I took following Mom’s passing. I traveled with two close friends with the closest one notably absent: Mom. Since I was twelve years old, I desired to travel to Chocolate Town after watching a TV show on the Travel Channel in 2005 about Hersheytown. Twelve-year old Asia loved (and still loves) chocolate, and imagining an entire city devoted to enhancing its visitor experience with chocolate delights was titillating to me.

In October 2021, I booked my Hershey trip to celebrate my twenty-ninth birthday. When my girlfriends and I entered the lobby of The Hershey Hotel, I was greeted with a complimentary gift-wrapped giant Hershey bar (cookies ‘n’ crème flavor) from the front desk staff.

The inside of the hotel was a perfect blend of quaint elegance and charm. The hot chocolate was THE best hot cocoa that I had in my life, and aside from the other places that we traveled around Hershey, nobody could touch The Hershey Hotel’s hot chocolate. Seriously.

My girlfriends and I enjoyed adventurous rides at The Hershey Park, a historical self-guided tour of The Hershey Story Museum, and wandering through the colorful Hershey Gardens. One special moment was experiencing my first chocolate massage: the Chocolate Fondue Wrap at The Spa at The Hershey Hotel. I remember twelve-year old me marveling at a video on the Travel Channel of a guest getting a massage covered in Hershey chocolate. When it was my turn to get a chocolate massage, I smiled inside as my masseuse gently massaged chocolate butter over my skin, absorbing and smelling all the cocoa goodness, while I lay still. When my masseuse left the room to allow me to relax in cocoa heaven, I shed a tear thinking of Mom, having marked three months without her. I also allowed my mind to release and embrace this moment of joyful tears.

Once my masseuse returned, she put me under the Vichy shower rinse, which washed away all the chocolate butter that had been so happily embraced by my skin (no caloric guilt involved ). This highlight of my trip was met with a somber reality during my last night at The Hershey Hotel, Sunday, October 17.

One of my friends went to bed early to prepare for an early morning flight, while my other friend was freshening up in the room. I chose to take a solo walk around the hotel grounds this night before my birthday, October 18, which would mark the first birthday that I would celebrate without Mom. I reflected on the moment talking to God and even telling Mom how much I loved and missed her. I also created a Voice Memo on my iPhone to express the bittersweet feelings that I was experiencing: celebrating my birthday, while also mourning that my mom was not there to celebrate with me (Mom probably would have stayed in The Hershey Spa throughout her visit LOL).

The beauty of my Hershey trip–the “Joy Inside My Tears” as Stevie Wonder so masterfully wrote and sang about–was wrapped in the fun company of my girlfriends who joined and celebrated with me, while creating beautiful moments  together in Hershey, PA, such as the Hershey Gardens (the butterfly bench was enchanting).

That is one of the lessons that I have learned from others and from my own experience on this grief journey: experiencing new places and having the support of people who love you, celebrate you, and mourn with you, helps keep your heart moving forward on days when it is hard to get out of the bed.

I have also learned in the nearly three years without Mom that traveling is a necessity for me to renew my joy and refresh my mind, especially, when life gets heavy, uncertain, and sometimes, outright confusing (and boy, does life life? Whew!).

God’s Word reminds us in Psalm 30:5 that while “weeping may endure for a night, joy comes in the morning.” I have found this scripture especially true during my grief journey. “A night” of weeping does not mean that you will only weep for “one night” of your life before the joy comes. Many a nights, as I have discovered, you may cry over the person who is no longer here to celebrate you, encourage you, mentor you, love you harder like no one else,  be a constant voice of wisdom, and be your safest place on earth.

Exploring the world without your loved one can help you build new adventures that you either planned with your loved one prior to their passing or that you desire to experience as a way to honor that person now that they are gone.

Travel . . . travel . . . travel when you can. Take your loved one in your heart pocket with you. While you grieve, celebrate your loved one’s legacy, and think about how much they would love to see you experiencing the world as you heal, rebuild, and embrace this new journey without them, holding on to God’s unchanging hand. As He promised, He will always be there with you.