A little less than a year ago I suffered my first miscarriage. This was when I was still living in England, away from my family in Canada, with not much of a support system other than my husband and a couple friends. Before I miscarried, we had plans to meet my sister and her husband for a vacation on the Isle of Islay in Scotland. For those who don't know, Islay is known for their whisky, and there are several distilleries on the (roughly) 200 miles squared island. If you are a whisky buff, you probably recognize Islay for their whiskies (Lagavulin, Bowmore, Laphroaig to name a few). She rented an AirBNB (an old renovated church) and we had several whisky tours booked. Of course I wouldn't be partaking in the drinking of the whisky but I was honestly just looking forward to seeing my sister as I hadn't seen her in about a year and a half at the time.
About a week before our trip, I miscarried. It was one of the worst things I had ever gone through, and more than ever I was holding out for that trip to be able to spend some time with family I so desperately needed. We loaded the car, and made our way from south England up the eastern coast, and into Scotland. We stayed overnight in Edinburgh and the next day we made our way west to board the ferry to the island. When we arrived at the terminal the attendants informed us the ferry was canceled for the rest of the week due to extreme weather (it was February, storm season, to be fair). My sister and brother in law were already on the isle waiting for us. Upon hearing that there was no plausible way to get on the island, I realized I came this far, gone this long without seeing my sister, and even though she was so close I was not going to be able to see her.
The next several hours were incredibly difficult and emotional. We didn't have a plan, we didn't even know where we would be sleeping that night. We made the decision to stay in Scotland, since we had already rented a car, and we would do a little road trip and hit a few spots that we probably wouldn't otherwise get to see.
We ended up driving through the mountains near Loch Lomond, all through the Highlands and up to Inverness, of course we stopped at Loch Ness, hit up Glasgow (we had already been to Glasgow so we didn't spend too much time there) and Edinburgh again. In short, this trip, (even though it was completely derailed and I never got to see my sister), ended up being exactly what I needed to help me heal from the pain of losing a baby. If you are hurting, I highly, highly, recommend going to see some mountains.
Edinburgh Castle
Loch Lomond
Inverness
Tarbert
Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness
Somewhere in the Highlands
TL/DR;
Mountains and Scotland have magic healing powers.
