Fearless Roots: Travel, Grief, And Resilience With Becky Doughty

Jo: Hello Travelers. I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with Becky Doughty. Hi Becky.

Becky: Hi Jo. How are you?

Jo: I’m good. It’s great to have you on the show. For a little introduction, Becky writes heartfelt and wholesome, contemporary commercial fiction and Christian fiction, including the Autumn Lake and the Tuscan Romance series. We have lots to talk about today, but as a starter —

How did travel play a part in your childhood?

Becky: Well, I always say I’m a missionary kid in recovery because travel made me fearless. Being a kid that traveled all around the world, I never really had a place that was home base. Even though we didn’t live in a lot of different countries, we did primarily live in Indonesia. My dad was an airplane mechanic and pilot, and he oversaw most of the hangar operations at our base camp in what is now West Papua.

For me, travel was just a way of life. We traveled back and forth to the States, which was home, and I traveled to school. I was a boarding student in high school and we traveled all on our own, with no parents. It was two days of travel, and we had to get to the right place during our stopover. Travel was just a part of life and it made me a fearless, “I’m just going to do whatever I want to do” kind of person. But the flip side is that it also leaves you feeling a little bit, not unrooted, but wondering where to put your roots down.

Especially since we were always told that America was home, in particular where our grandparents lived. But it never felt like home because we were always only visiting. That’s a big part of why I write stories about people finding their place. I’ve always written stories and escaped into other people’s lives for that reason.

Jo: It’s fascinating that you were told where home is whilst living elsewhere. Because you are living there, in West Papua or PNG as it was, with a very different culture, climate, and religions. I worked in mining for a while, so I know that sort of ‘Wild West’ idea of what was going on in PNG, and of course, there were wars and everything. So that’s very different.

To be told, “Your home is in America, you belong in America,” must have been very strange. What age were you? What were your formative years?

Becky: My parents went to the mission field with three kids under three. My older brother and I are adopted, not biologically related, and then the next two siblings came along naturally. My sister and I are only eight months apart. So when they went to the mission field, my brother was around three, I was one, and my sister was younger. I lived away until my senior year of high school.

We came back periodically. At the beginning, it was every four years. Then, as they realized how isolating that was for some people, it changed. I think now furloughs are closer to every two years.

Jo: And of course, no internet. International phoning was really hard. A very different world.

Becky: Completely different.

We had to travel to phone home to our grandparents. Once a year, we would travel into the capital, Jayapura, and make a very short call at the embassy. Our main mode of communication was cassette tapes. We would record and send them, and it could take four to six weeks, or even two months, to arrive. Our grandparents would record these long cassette tapes with Grandpa reading stories and singing songs, saying things like, “Here’s a song that reminds me of Becky.” We had these wonderful treasures because communication was so difficult.

Jo: Do you still have them?

Becky: I don’t have them anymore. My mom has a few things from back then, but those are some of the memories that we just lost. One of the issues we had was that we often had to pack up and leave everything behind. You get used to taking only what you can put in your suitcase, and with the idea that we were just going ‘home’ to see the grandparents, a lot of stuff that we should have kept wasn’t. My mom has kept all of her prayer letters and has compiled them in a book, so that’s cool because we get to see the journey through those letters.

When we came back to Indonesia, we would often pack a crate and have it shipped by sea. By the time it arrived, it would often have holes cut in the side and things taken from it. So even when we sent stuff ahead, things were often missing. We never knew quite what we would get at the other end. We started shipping things in 55-gallon drums that you could seal, which were harder to break into, but you can cut the lock on one of those. It was always a free-for-all; you never knew what was going to meet you.

Jo: A far cry from Amazon next-day delivery!

I want to come back to something you mentioned. You were adopted, and I was reading on your website that you say —

“I am adopted. It’s pretty cool. I come from nowhere, anywhere and everywhere.”

This fascinated me, because I don’t think I’ve ever read a description of being adopted in terms of sense of place before. That really caught my eye. Why did you choose those words to describe it that way?

Becky: That’s a really good question. I’ve had to really think about this and how to answer it succinctly.

One of the things I struggled with growing up was a sense of belonging. It’s not because my parents were problematic; they were wonderful parents. I am a success story as far as winning the lottery with parents through adoption. But I still always felt that there’s something of me out there somewhere. If I could find my people and my place, I would know where I came from, and that would give me a better sense of where I’m going.

Because I have such a deep connection to the people in my life—my adopted family, my husband of 37 years, our grown kids and five grandkids—I have a very stable life in terms of people. But because of the travel and never really having that sense of place, I always thought it would be cool to find out that I’m from some random place and get there and find a bunch of people who look and act just like me.

According to my birth records, I have both Japanese and Spanish in me, which you’d never know. But wouldn’t it be cool to go to Japan and find where I started from? So a sense of place is almost more important to me because I already have a sense of people.

Ironically, there’s a funny twist. We’ve been living in California for most of our marriage, but we moved to Indiana, which is in the middle of the Midwest. We ended up living on the exact same street, just four houses up from where my husband grew up. For my husband, Kevin, coming back to his street has been like coming home. There’s a little bit of me that gets to live vicariously through him regarding where home is. But I think I’ll always be searching for where home is.

I am a believer, and that is actually one of the few things that has kept me grounded.

The reason I came back for my senior year of high school was because I got kicked out of school. I really struggled with authority, especially not being able to question it. It was a very conservative boarding school for missionary kids. If you questioned anything, you were the troublemaker. That really played a lot into my feelings of “Why am I here? I don’t fit here.” I was told, “This is how Christians act and behave,” but that’s not the way I believe.

That set me as an adult in this direction of searching. I walked away from my faith for a long time in my thirties, and then at the end of that journey, I realized that’s the only thing I can really depend on because people are just people. This goes back to that idea of place. The older I get, the more I feel like maybe I’ll just keep traveling while I’m here and wait for that feeling of home for Heaven.

Jo: That’s really interesting. I have heard many people of faith say they will go home to God or Jesus. Let’s stick with different places because you have your Tuscan romance, ‘All The Way to Heaven’.

Everyone loves Tuscany. Tell us about the trip that inspired the book. Since a sense of place is so important to you, what places from that time still stick in your mind?

Becky: A friend of mine and I had “Go to Tuscany” on our bucket list because we were massive fans of ‘Under the Tuscan Sun’.

Ironically, it was the movie that we loved so much. I always read books first, but this was one that I didn’t, because I didn’t know it was based on a book until after watching the movie. My husband, bless his heart, hates flying, but I grew up on little tiny puddle jumpers and never thought of flying as something to be afraid of. So, he stayed home with the kids.

We wanted to go to a few places that were a little less chaotic, especially since we were going in October, during the harvest and tourist season. We started our trip in Lucca, which is a medieval walled city.

It was a perfect introduction to Tuscany because it felt like what you see in the movies without being super touristy. One of the coolest things about Lucca was the walls that circle the city, which have a walking and bike trail on top. You could rent a bike for the day and go all the way around the city, pulling off for gelato, stopping at the little merchant market, or popping into the square. It was a fully immersive, self-guided tour of this wonderful little town.

The first morning we were there, we woke up to the sounds of a woman singing Puccini under our window. And Lucca is actually the birthplace of Giacomo Puccini. It just felt like it was straight out of a movie.

Then we went to Siena and were a couple of months late for the Palio, the crazy horse races. But we discovered that there are little neighbourhood competitions that go on year-round. At one point, around 10 or 11 at night, we heard a group of people coming up the street singing at the top of their lungs. We went running down from our fifth-floor balcony—stairs only—and joined the back of the group and walked with them down to the Piazza del Campo. There was another group coming from the other end, and they were launching good-natured taunts at each other. We just got to sit there and experience it and have celebratory drinks with everyone. It just felt like we were part of this much bigger picture.

Our goal was to go from Tuscany down to the Amalfi coast and then back up to Rome to go home. We headed down to Sorrento, settled in, and the next day we went to Naples, saw the museum and the secret room. We went back to Sorrento and took a day trip to Capri, which was beautiful. The next day we were supposed to go to Positano and Amalfi, but I got a call from home that my dad had had a stroke.

I got to speak to him, and he said, “Don’t come home. I’m going to be okay.” But everything had changed. When he had a second stroke, we knew we had to go home.

We headed back to Rome the next morning and were able to get a plane that afternoon to Paris. We had a six or seven-hour layover, so we overnighted in the airport.

I got a call in Paris asking if it would be okay with me if they took him off life support because he was otherwise gone.

Because of my belief in Heaven, I was comforted by the fact that I will see him again. I didn’t need him to wait for me; he was already gone.

Needless to say, I got home and Italy got shelved. Everything that happened there was put on hold, and it was full-on into processing grief, taking care of my mom, and gathering family. It was just pretty brutal.

Jo: That’s fascinating, because some people never go anywhere because they’re afraid of something happening while they’re gone.

And then there’s your experience, where one of the worst things did happen while you were away, and you dealt with it. But now, whenever you think back to that trip, that grief is the overwhelming memory. So, I’m interested —

How did you write a romance about an area that resonates with that grief? And do you have any thoughts for people who are afraid to travel because of that kind of fear?

Becky: Ironically, my friend is quite a bit older than I am, and her father was in ill health. We had talked about what would happen if we got the call about her dad. She had said, “I’ve said my goodbyes to him, we won’t come home.” We never imagined it would be my dad; he was only 67.

When I came home, everything got put away. I rarely even spoke about Italy to anyone.

Then, seven years later, almost to the day—two days shy of the seventh anniversary of Dad’s death—I was woken up hearing that same woman singing Puccini outside my window. I lay there for a minute thinking, “Where am I?” I could hear her voice just echoing, even after I woke up. I thought, maybe this is Dad saying, “Let’s go revisit this place that had these wonderful memories for you that turned sour because of me.” Of course, I projected all of that into it, but that’s how it felt.

So I pulled stuff out and started going through it.

It was so hard for me to see the good in it while also remembering how every little moment felt once I learned what had happened with Dad. I finally said, “I need to look through this stuff and pull out these memories as though they’re somebody else’s,” to give myself that distance. I created a character who was completely different from me, a different person who went to all these places and sort of told me about them. It was a very natural progression; my creative mind put this together. It became her story, and I decided to write it. It wasn’t a conscious decision to conquer anything; there’s a lot of guilt when you’re away.

There’s always that regret. But I think living with regret is one of the worst things we can do in life. It keeps us trapped where we are rather than moving forward. Bringing this book to life was a way to honor the trip and the memory, but it’s also a way to honor my dad. At the back of the book, I have an author’s note that tells a brief version of this story.

Sometimes we have to let time pass, but other times, I think we have to face things.

I’m a bit of a warrior, so I want to face the demons and the hard things. But even if we face them, we have to give ourselves grace and space, a place where we can withdraw if we need to. The book is not at all about someone losing a father. It is a romance about a girl who plans a trip to surprise the guy she’s dating, finds out he’s already married, and ends up going by herself. To me, that’s another element of facing your demons—facing them alone.

Jo: I never get the audio guide in museums. I don’t want to be told what to pay attention to. I want to be the one drawn to something first.

Becky: Bad things happen no matter where we are. If we’re going to have regrets, I would rather regret missing being at the right place for a bad thing than regret not experiencing good things.

Jo: Ninety-five percent of all the traveling I’ve done has had a positive net effect. Bad things have happened, but they have not taken away from the overall importance of the travel.

Becky: Yes, absolutely. In the year 2000, during what I call my “running years,” I decided I wanted to run one marathon in my life. And if I was going to run a marathon, I wanted to make it a good one. So I ran the Dublin marathon.

There were monumental weather issues—flooding all over England, Scotland, and Ireland. I flew into London and backpacked up through Leicester. A friend and I then drove up through the Yorkshire Dales, stayed with friends of hers, and then went into the Lake District. We were at Derwentwater, and the lakes were overflowing the docks. It was crazy. Then I crossed over from Cairnryan to Northern Ireland and stayed in Belfast. Had I known anything about what was going on in Belfast in the year 2000, oh my gosh. At the youth hostel I stayed at, the windows were shot out and boarded up. They said they weren’t replacing them until it was over because they were tired of replacing them. Waking up at 11 o’clock with gunshots outside was just crazy.

Jo: We should say it’s not like that anymore. The Troubles have passed!

Becky: Oh my gosh, no, it’s wonderful now.

Leaving Scotland, I was back by myself, backpacking down to Dublin, staying in youth hostels. I ran the marathon, and it was raining the whole time. My sister, who lived in Sweden, had planned to come over but had to have surgery. I ran this epic race by myself. The start and finish line was a mile from the youth hostel. I walked there, crossed the finish line, walked back, and just cried for an hour in the showers. It was a complete release of endorphins with no one to share it with.

It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. It was like having everything stripped away.

I ended up leaving a day early and heading down to Wicklow and Glendalough, just hanging out at St. Kevin’s monastery and its ruins, walking and processing all by myself.

Then I had to go down to Rosslare to take the ferry back across to Wales. The storms had kicked up again, and I got the last ferry across. I got into Pembroke, made it to Swansea, and found the train tracks had been flooded out. They were shutting everything down, and I had to be back at Heathrow the next day. I just thought, “I’m not going to make it. I just want to go home to my people.”

It was utter chaos. By the time I made it home, it really was a stripping down of everything—all my plans, all my expectations. Everything that I thought would happen, happened, but in a different version. I realized I have no control. The only thing I can control is the people I love and what’s inside of me—what I give to the world, what I put out there. To me, that’s what self-control is. It’s not putting limitations on myself; it’s me determining what I put out there.

When we go on these trips, I can either be afraid that something bad will happen, or I can embrace the moment that I’m in. You just never know. You don’t know what you’re missing out on if you don’t go.

Jo: Well we are almost out of time, but this is the Books and Travel show.

What are a few books that you love and recommend?

Becky: Of course, Frances Mayes’ ‘Under the Tuscan Sun‘. I think everybody should read that. It’s actually a memoir and very different from the movie.

We talked a little bit about grief, and one of the authors I really love is Caitlin Doughty. She’s written several books on death, and ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ is another take on it. To me, understanding and embracing death is a good way to process grief.

We also talked about the idea of home. My husband and I have always made a home by planting a garden; it’s the first thing we do wherever we end up. I also have a morbid fascination with poisonous plants, but this is a beautiful book called ‘The Complete Language of Flowers’. The art in it is just wonderful. A lot of my books are a little ‘gardeny’ anyway. I’m a hobby herbalist, so I have a lot of herbal and home remedy books, and my garden is also my medicine chest. And of course, then my books.

Jo: Yes, absolutely.

Where can people find you and your books online?

Becky: I am an author and an audiobook narrator. You can find my books at beckydoughty.com. I narrate most of my own books, but I also narrate for many others—I have over 200 audiobooks out there. You can find my books and audiobooks on Amazon, Audible, and Apple. Just look up my name, Becky Doughty.

Jo: Brilliant. Well thanks so much for your time, Becky. That was great.

Becky: Thank you, Jo.