Nisswa Bound

cherishing old memories and marveling at some new ones

The Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, I counted yet another day in a nice streak with the pain very low, and I had a burst of courage

I think I can go to the cabin this weekend, I told Tim. He grinned and started getting ready.

As expected, the trip pushed me beyond my energy envelope and it is taking me a little longer than I’d like to recover. But I am so glad I went.

My brother and I are the only ones left now to tell the old stories. Here we are in our mid 70s and he will be able to do what our folks did…spend most of the summer at the family cabin. I thought I would get to do that too when I reached the sunset years, but my illness had a different agenda for me.

This is not a full memoir, but just a few nuggets to set the stage for you. Our great grandfather bought this plot of land with the “old log cabin“ a hundred and ten years ago. He had visited the spot the year earlier in his quest to find somewhere to spend summers away from the Kansas heat and humidity. He was captivated by the “million dollar view” here, on the back side of the lake. That’s just a nice way of saying there was no road around the lake in those days. You came across from the opposite shore by boat. Now our grandchildren are the sixth generation of our family to come here for a vacation with a view, and it’s an easy drive on a wide, fast road.

So much change has happened in that time, some of it a great loss, and some of it of course a sweet benefit. That’s how things always go when change happens. A little of both.

So there we were for a few days, my brother and I and our spouses, telling and listening to the old old stories, sharing the new ones of our grandchildren and their experiences here, each for a week or so each summer. There we were, remembering, celebrating, and mourning all at once.

Isn’t it amazing, Ric remarked at some point, how little actual time spent here has had such a huge impact on us all.

Yes! I replied.

My grandson Cameron gets it. Here’s an excerpt from an essay he wrote for his senior language arts class last fall: That’s what the family cabin is all about: laughing, listening, and creating new memories on top of old ones. Generations upon generations have experienced these great feelings and activities, and now these feelings have fallen to me. Though these memories and activities may seem simple to most, they have been rooted in my memories and life forever. This cabin is not just another summer vacation; it is where I learned the importance of community and the feeling of belonging.

Like me, the cabin is winding down its life now.

The “new” cabin appeared on the scene during the winter of 1960-61. Even though it was remarkably well built by the Rardin construction company - with indoor plumbing! – it’s beginning to show its age. Even the new little cottage, built on the footprint of the old ice and storage house, with its extra sleeping space and laundry, which was built in 1997, has a bit of a faded look to it here and there. It won’t be long before there need to be some major improvements.

The ambience of being cozied up in the woods is fading fast as people come in and replace little cabins with ginormous homes, complete with outdoor lighting of course, knocking down huge swaths of forest as they do so. On top of that, in the last decade there have been two major storms and an oak leaf blight that have changed the feel of being cradled by the woodsy outdoors, away from the rest of the world. The little town of Nisswa is pretty much the same, but the rest of the neighborhood has become the playground of those much wealthier than us.

Oh how I miss that endless canopy of trees and those dark night skies!

I was feeling a little sorry for myself when I couldn’t go out on the boat with the rest of them one day when I suddenly remembered my Grama Dorothy. It was her parents who first owned the place, and she initially came at age 18. Within two years she discovered she was allergic to the pickerel weed seeds in the lake and had a reaction similar to poison ivy. All over her body.

And so, from the time she was 20 until she died at my age, she came to the cabin every summer and never once got on the lake. We had special rules we followed to keep her comfortable – no swimsuits or wet towels in the house, for instance. (There’s a good story here about the time I flipped the boat, and she saw and came down on the dock and demanded that we hand over my sopping wet little sister as we were swimming for shore, towing a rowboat filled to the gunwales. She suffered dreadfully afterwards, of course. But that’s a longer story for another day.)

So I sat thinking about my grandmother and my self pity evaporated. Even without enjoying the lake itself, she soaked up the healing magic of this place with its million dollar view her whole life long.

And my parents, here up into their mid 80s, mostly sat on the porch looking at the lake by then, golf games and boat rides long retired and passed on to the next generations. They adapted to aging without losing any joy.

And now, even though much of what I loved is gone, the grandchildren don’t know that and find every inch of this place magical. This is what they will tell stories about when they are old.

So. Even as life is winding down, you can feel a little bit of loss if you want. Maybe quite a bit. But you can also feel an enormous amount of joy and gratitude. Thank you for the nudge, Grama. Thank you for the example, Mom and Dad.

Sometimes – a lot of times – I feel like the luckiest person in the world.

Today is one of those times