The Trip She Took With Her Dead Daughter | Becky Livingston | Ep 101

Becky Livingston didn't just survive the loss of her daughter Rachel, she took her on one last trip. 

For 26 months, Becky traveled the globe with Rachel’s ashes in her suitcase, scattering them in the places Rachel had always dreamed of visiting—from the Taj Mahal to the peaks of the Andes. This is the visceral, logistics-heavy, and deeply moving account of that journey. Becky shares the reality of carrying an urn through airport security, the ritual of "leaving a piece of her" in every country, and how a 26-month trip designed for a dead daughter ended up saving the mother who was left behind. If you’ve ever wondered how to move forward when the person you love is gone, this is the roadmap.

Missed The first part? https://youtu.be/DSr7dQdJ3UY

 Guest Page: https://shithappy.com/the-trip-she-took-with-her-dead-daughter-becky-livingstone-ep-101/
 Links To Love: https://shithappy.com/resources/
 For laughs check out our other Youtube @inbedwithphil

0:00 Introduction
1:01 Becky Leaves for Europe
4:38 Leaving Ashes Around the World
6:41 The Airport Incident in Melbourne
10:15 Talking to Rachel
12:21 The Journey Comes to a Close
14:24 Writing the Book and Finding Healing

#grief #travel #lifeafterloss #childloss #shithappypodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

When Rachel died at 23, one of the last things she was able to communicate to myself and her dad was that she'd be really keen on keeping travelling.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Today we're continuing Becky's story and hearing more about how she took her daughter's ashes around the world. Hello, hello.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

I'm in your head. About a year and a half after she died, and life, my grief seemed to be getting worse, not better. I decided to take a leave from my teaching job, unpaid leave. I quit my job. I left the apartment that I was living in. I put what I'd got into storage, put the rest, a six by ten foot locker, and I packed the rest into a suitcase, and in that suitcase were some of her ashes in a ziploc bag. And I flew away. I went to Europe. I had one destination. I was going to go off to Mallorca. I'd met a woman in my Zumba class who had this place in this tiny village in Mallorca. And she said, Yeah, you can rent it for me. And she went, and it was perfect because it was really rustic. Bathroom was outside, no washer, no dryer, no heating, nothing comfortable and cozy. And you haven't hand washing this, you know, all the dishes, washing the clothes outside in this old sink. I mean, it was ancient. And I thought this is perfect because I want something that's so simple and basic and challenging because I wanted to be brought back into a very raw state, much like my daughter had to be in the final days and hours and minutes of her life. It was the only way I could sort of justify that experience was being really brought back to almost well, as as basic an existence as I could get. So anyway, I was there for a couple of months, and after that, I'd registered to be a house sitter before I'd left Canada. And I thought, well, I don't know where I'm going to go now. And I uh I ended up getting a house sit in Bunbury in Western Australia. And I have a friend who lives in Perth. I phoned her and I said, Could I, yeah, she picked up on the first ring, and I said, Hey, I've got this opportunity to come to Bunbury to house it. Yeah, get on the plane. I'll come and I'll pick you up at the airport. So I flew, you know, other side of the world, and then I was in Australia here for a while. After that, I went visit a friend from Melbourne. I went to India because I really needed to leave those ashes at the Taj Mahal based on this book, Unforgettable Places to See Before You Die. Then I had a house in Tasmania, which was amazing, and everything turned around for me in Tasmania. I was probably seven months into my trip then. And what I realized when I was writing my book was that the homes I was staying in felt like a mirror to my grief. When I was in Mallorca, the house was cold and dark. I mean, it was lovely outside, it was Mallorca. I'm in this house and I feel quite trapped. When I was in Tasmania, I'm on the I'm in this house on a hill, and it's got two, three walls of floor-to-ceiling windows. The closest house was probably a kilometre away from me. I could see the Ben Loman Mountains. I had this beautiful meandering river, sort of at the bottom of this hill where I was. There were cattle, there were sheep, there were huge clouds that cast shadows all over the fields, and it was awesome. And my heart felt so expansive when I was there. And that's the first time I felt joy. And I thought, joy is possible in the world of grief. Claim it. And to we've even had that thought, was so radical. The other thing I realized when I was writing the book was when I left her ashes everywhere I went, because I did want to leave her everywhere I went. Sometimes I didn't like a place very much, I didn't leave much. But if I really liked a place, I left quite a few as a way to sort of um show my appreciation for it. But what I realized when I was writing the book is this became a ritual, and rituals by their very nature help bring order back into our lives, and I hadn't, I've never thought of it as that before, but that's what it became, and I realized that all that time, 26 months, together I was finding homes for her in the world, and I was finding homes for myself at the same time, which was a beautiful revelation. So yeah, I just kept leaving her ashes here, there, and everywhere. Always took a photograph of where I left her ashes. Obviously, you're looking for places that are quiet.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Uh, because you're doing a little goodbye.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

You're doing goodbye, your heart's like in your throat. It got, I'm not gonna say easier, but it did get easier. I can't think of a better, but to start with, it was just horrendous. And then it became, yeah, it was just so it was so scary, and I was so nervous. You were really worried about if somebody's gonna see you, somebody might what are you doing, or something like that. Because I didn't have a death certificate. I thought, I'm not traveling with a death certificate, my daughter's not died, we're not gonna be doing all this denial, like you know. Yeah, so I had to be very careful, there was never ashes in my handbag in this little jar, because my book's called the suitcase in the jar, because I would fill up this little jar with her ashes, keep it in my handbag, and then if I was ever somewhere, I had this tiny little jar, and then leave some of ashes, and then I'd come back home and and fill the jar back up.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Were you ever questioned about your jar of ashes?

SPEAKER_00 6:57

No, I didn't tell anybody.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

No, nobody stopped you at a border or anything.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Well, you know what? And here's well, I'm gonna say it's a funny story, it's actually quite sad. I was in Melbourne and I was flying back from Melbourne, from Melbourne, back to Manchester in England, and I'm at Melbourne Airport, and I look in my handbag, and there's the jar with some of the ashes in. And I've checked my suitcase in. Oh well, I tell you, I was I just didn't know what to do. It had always been such a special occasion, and I'd really made it so beautiful. I talked to her, and you know, we were always in nature somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

And now I had some of the ashes. Well, I mean, you know, security in Australia. Yes. I thought about flushing it down the toilet, I thought about putting in the and it was awful, Tony. That was the only time. And then in the end, it I it was uh, I don't know if it's gonna be heartbreaking for me to even tell you this. I don't know if you want me to tell you, but I I ended up going outside on a deck. There was sort of this deck somewhere, like where smokers go. Yeah, I put some of the ashes down on this concrete deck thing, and then I I squished my boot over those ashes like I was putting out a cigarette, and I thought this is so bad, this is so awful, but I could not risk I it was limited choices. That's a story in my book, too. But that was really, really I couldn't believe I I did that. But yeah, but you know, there was another time um when I was writing the book, I only realized this then was there was a period of time after about a year, could have even been more like a year and a half, I started to leave her ashes in places of the decomposition. Like I left her once in an old like cedar pile of wood chips, it smelled lovely, and obviously, somebody was gonna put the wood chips on their lawn. I left her in a log stump and I pushed her ashes inside the lines of a log stump. Um yeah, I just noticed I started to leave her in old places and decomposing places, and it wasn't until I wrote the book when I noticed because I had index cards, every single place I left her, who, what, when, where, why, how, and all, what was going on that's sort of the base one I'm writing. And all these happened around the same time, and I thought this is what's happening to me. I'm also coming apart, letting myself completely be undone by all of this, and it was like I was remaking myself, and I hadn't seen that while I was doing it. But when I saw it all, and though, yeah, for a few months that was what was happening.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Yeah, and did did you count how many places you yeah?

SPEAKER_00 10:15

You know what? I didn't really. I'm guessing there were, I think in my book I say at least 50.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Um, but you know, I'm sure I missed the odd place or I deleted a photo somewhere of something. Um but I remember them. I mean, we could I could if you if I you know I remember them like it was yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

So you said that you talked to her. Did you talk to her all the time through the whole journey, or just when you were leaving her ashes?

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Just when I was leaving her ashes.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Just when you were leaving her ashes.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Because I would almost always cry, and it was very, very hard to talk to her, but I wanted to tell her where she was, so I could sort of describe it, right? Like she could hear or something. I don't know. It was very, very important that I that I talked to her. It felt wrong if it was too quick, or it was, you know, it really was an experience of very much honouring her life and our relationship.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Yeah, yeah. Did she talk back to you ever?

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Good question. Um I don't know. I can't put words in her mouth. There were some places where I thought she might be saying to me, Gee, good for God's sake, Mum, what are you doing leaving me here? Or I don't know. Yeah, I guess I've got to just go with this. Um, but there were some times that uh I'm sure she would have had something to say, but no, I didn't, it wasn't she was talking back to me. But I yeah, that's a good question. I think it took all my strength just to just to talk to her and leave her, and then always I would need a time to just rest after that. Uh I would just have to be calm. You can't just get up and walk away.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

No, yeah. So it was a 26-month journey of doing this.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

How are you feeling at the beginning and how were you feeling at the end?

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Well, interesting because at the end I realized, at the end of my 26 months, I realized I've not left her ashes anywhere for the last few months.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Ah I know.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

And I thought, oh, isn't this interesting? I've not felt the need, I've not found the place or something. So this beautiful organic journey sort of came to its own close. And then I think I realized, so what are you doing now? Why are you even on this journey? What and actually, you know, and people called me courageous for leaving, like I did. Honestly, stopping was more courage, took more courage.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Do you still have ashes left?

SPEAKER_00 13:20

I do actually. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

And you know what? After after I wrote the book, I think even no, after I wrote the book, I did sometimes travel with some of her ashes. Um, they're not in the book or anything, and that was lovely. And I've got, I know all those places too, maybe five or six. Some of them I did with somebody else. Um, and that was nice, but now I don't think about it. Now I don't ever take her anywhere. Uh well, mostly because I only travel with carry-on luggage, and I would never, I couldn't, you can't possibly do that. You know, you can't be taking ashes and carry on. It would I would be just terrible if somebody found them. So no.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

And confiscated them.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

And confiscated terrible. I mean, I it that would just be heartbreaking. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

So did you have her in what ziploc bags in your suitcase?

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Yeah, I had a ziploc bag, and then I had this ziploc bag inside an old sort of makeup bag that was all crinkled and plastic and inside. It had a little zipper, and then it had a popper, and then it just looked like a makeup bag in in my my suitcase. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Sounds like an incredibly beautiful way to heal and to honour your daughter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

It really, it really was, and I think the writing of the book really helped me crystal crystallize what the whole thing is about. And it occurred to me, you know, when I was writing, that even writing and grief and travel, there's so many overlaps because when you write, you edit all the time. You're always having to edit things out. You're always letting go. And grief is all about letting go. And I literally had to let go, I had to let go of the whole story of my life. Who am I now? I'm no longer a teacher, I'm no longer a mother of two daughters. So it was, and this is what happens, right? During transitions, we have to let go of old selves, and we've got to reauthorize a new story, otherwise we stay stuck.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Yeah. The new story.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

And I think that's why it's so important for us to move our bodies physically in travel. Obviously, you know, I'm a big advocate for it now, right? We have to move our bodies and see things in a whole new light.