Our slice of heaven

In 2010, a Loose Moose customer of mine, turned lifelong friend, gifted us a week in his condo in Bonita Springs for our honeymoon. That’s when we fell in love with South Florida. On one of our annual trips to follow, a resident told us about a ‘locals only beach’ 20 minutes down the road in Naples. It has about 10 public parking spots- you only know about it if you know.

From the lot by the boat docs, there’s a quarter mile walk down a brick walkway covered by greenery and the most beautiful flowers surrounding. An easy walk until you have three children and all of our things in tow- beautiful nonetheless. At the end of the walk appears white sand, sunny skies, and our slice of heaven. Our home away from home. Our escape. Our sacred place. Our yearly Bonita trip quickly turned into our yearly Naples trip because of our love and connection with that beach. It was ours.

This vacation was quite different from start to finish. Canceled flight on the way down. Influenza A for Michael, Madden, and myself. Madden vomiting all over the first hotel. A trip to urgent care. A mild (major) panic attack for me the morning of the flight home. But… no where else we’d rather have the flu/anxiety than our beloved Naples, Florida.

We booked this trip in January. We decided pretty quickly to extend the vacation because the winter felt so long. The hotel we originally reserved had no vacancy to stay longer- so Matt decided to use our credit card points to stay at the Ritz Carlton for the last few days of our trip.

Have you ever seen a Moxley at the Ritz? Let me paint the picture... Three out of five are walking in with fevers, trying to stand up straight walking from self-parking to our room. (Self-parking and the Ritz don’t exactly go hand in hand lol but on we went.) Our boys have crocs on, stains on their shirts from the McDonald’s we inhaled on the way over. I’m carrying the bottle of Arbor Mist Matt bought me earlier in the week because he couldn’t find my favorite wine, but found the flavor I like. It was a site to see! We walked past young children in polo shirts and boat shoes, hair styled just right, all but juggling their golf balls with a putter tucked under their arm- for this was the Ritz Carlton Golf Resort. We stood out like a sore thumb! The Moxley’s had arrived!

After we got settled in, Matt, Michael, and Madden went to explore the hotel while I bathed Macon in the biggest bathtub I’d ever seen. Then I hear a knock on the door. I didn’t answer because I had my young child in the tub, so she let herself in. ‘Housekeeping..’

I said hello, shocked & stunned that someone just let themselves into our room. She was warm and friendly, asked if I wanted our beds turned down. I said, ‘I don’t really know what that means, so I think we’re okay, but thank you, anyway.’ She asked if I wanted tea or coffee- I said yes, a cup of decaf would be great. She took out a little triangle looking thing and handed it to me. I said, ‘what is this?’ She explained it was for the espresso machine by the door. Before I knew it, she was telling me where to put the water and how to actually use an espresso machine. And out comes a ‘cup of decaf’ the size of a shot of whiskey in the smallest ‘coffee cup’ I had ever seen! Hahahaha I was so confused.

Ritz people use espresso machines, not K cups or bun coffee makers. Matt and the boys came back and we noticed chocolates on the beds that I didn’t have her turn down, and Matt and I laughed about my first real experience with luxury. How humbling it was.

The Golf Resort has a water park, which is why we chose that one as opposed to the beach front Ritz. We wanted to gift that to our boys to round out our trip- except the day after we arrived, the slides were shut down for maintenance. How appropriate for this trip.

Saturday night we get the boys all tucked in- they were fast asleep while we were binging Ozark. We then hear a knock on the door. ‘Housekeeping.’ Matt opens the door to a butler with a cart of things that we didn’t order and a hand written note from the hotel staff. It read something like, ‘Mr. Moxley, we are so sorry for the inconvenience of maintenance on the water park. We are elated to have your family staying with us…’ the butler brings in a bucket of champagne on ice, two champagne glasses that glistened, chocolate covered strawberries, small chips of the most divine chocolate, three small stuffed turtles for the boys, and a basket of sand toys. We laid in bed in our luxurious Ritz robes and slippers, drank champagne, ate chocolate, and it was then we decided we could totally be Ritz people. Who wouldn’t love to be fussed over and spoiled?

By the end of the trip, we fit in just right. We dined by the pool/golf course, spent way too much money on the best food we’d ever eaten, played games, took pictures, went for a walk, and had arguably one of the best nights of our life as a family of five. That night we became Ritz people, unapologetically.

The pride that Matt took, the joy it brought him, the way he had always given so much of himself to his career… him providing that experience for me and our children, was one of his most proud moments as a man and a father. He felt, we felt, he made it.

The trajectory of Matt’s career and Matt as a man was a straight line up. The trajectory was the Ritz Carlton. The saying, ‘just because you could, doesn’t mean you should’ came to mind… and though we may not have chosen to stay our next trip there because it was an ungodly amount of money.. that fact that it was an option was the pride. The dream. The goal.

I had never been more proud of him in our life together. It wasn’t because of the luxury or the ‘things,’ it was because I was looking at a man who worked endlessly to provide this life for his family- and did so without complaint and so selflessly. He made it- therefore we made it.

About a week after Matt passed, Michael asked if we’d ever be able to go back to Florida. I told him Daddy and I had a dream for our boys, a life we wanted for them, experiences we wanted them to have… that I will do any and everything in my power to get them back to Naples every year the way Matt and I had always planned. I will provide them the life we dreamt for them.. because as a woman and a mother, I can do *anything.*

A side note- on that trip, Matt told me he wanted his ashes spread on our beach one day. Interesting, right? Next year we will take his ashes to our beach and share him with our slice of heaven. It will be a painful honor to rest him in our most sacred, beloved place on Earth.