Tripping with Parents

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For years Chicagoan Michael O'Shea and his wife Frances had talked about traveling to Australia and New Zealand after their seven daughters grew up. When his wife died in October 1997, Michael resigned himself to never going. Then for Michael's 70th birthday, his daughters Anne, 36, a commercial pilot, and Bernadette, 37, a fund raiser, offered to take him on a trip Down Under funded by all the sisters. "My father never asked anything for himself," Bernadette says. "He was giddy for the next six weeks, watching audiotapes and reading books." Driving from place to place, often without hotel reservations, the daughters set a frantic pace. Although Michael kept up, it was sometimes a struggle for him. Still, he adored the trip. At a nature preserve in Australia, he let a huge python wrap itself around his neck. In Auckland, New Zealand, he sipped espresso and watched in amazement as thrill seekers, attached by wires, leaped from the Sky Tower--the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere--in what is called a controlled BASE jump. At the trip's end, he thanked his daughters profusely and, eyes twinkling, said, "You know, I have other dreams too."

Anne: It was great just to see the sparkle in his eye the entire time.

Michael: It was the dream of a lifetime, and it showed me my daughters appreciated what I did as a father.