Celebrate the day...

“Life’s journey is really about coming home, isn’t it?

– Anonymous

Friday, May the 12^th, 2017.

“She would have been sixty-eight today…” I texted.

It is easy to say about the people you genuinely love, how remarkable they are.  She was no exception – a person so gifted that whoever she met, felt as though she were their confidant and they her best friend.  If we had been drinking coffee this morning, she might have smiled and said that getting older is not for the faint of heart. There is so much she would have, could have said.  My sister Nancy, of course, could not…because she is not.

Several months after her death, Mariah and I met in Buffalo, rented a car and drove with her mother’s ashes across the border into Canada. Our destination was the Muskoka Region of Ontario one hundred fifty miles north of Toronto.

We took her home that day, to the land that meant so much. The land we had known all our lives. Along the way, we stopped at a ceramic shop and purchased two small kiln-fired vases nearly four inches tall. We wondered how we would put Nancy’s ashes into the clear lake waters. The small vessels were exactly what we needed.

A little background…

My maternal grandfather purchased 212 acres on the shores of Lake Joseph in 1910.  When Anne, Nancy and I entered the human race, it had been in the family nearly four decades. August was our time and was usually shared with forty to sixty folks that dropped by for a few days or a weekend.  In the early years, there was no telephone, no indoor plumbing, no electricity…it was heaven.

Muskoka air is filled with the sweet scent of hemlock, cedar, and spruce. Oak, Maple, and Birch cover the forest like silent sentinels. The crystal-clear waters of Lake Joseph provided as many recreational activities as one could imagine – boating, swimming, water skiing, and fishing to name a few. It was Lake Joe that made this place so special.

Chilly mornings were softened by roaring fires my father built to start each day. Soon it would time to break the fast. Just behind the breakfast table was a large window. On the other side was a moss-covered boulder the front of which was flat like a small table. Our morning meal typically included strong coffee, Peameal Bacon, toast, eggs, and milk. If fishing had been good the day before, small-mouth bass might grace the table. We always put bread outside the window, providing breakfast for the parade of chipmunks that entertained us by stuffing their cheeks to near bursting. It was excellent family entertainment.

Before eating, we held hands and prayed in unison, "We thank thee heavenly Father, for this and every blessing. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen." After breakfast, my father read something from the scriptures and gave a short prayer of thanksgiving.

Table cleared and dishes done, we kids, and any of our guests were off to days full of unknown adventure. Once and awhile, there might be plans, but usually, daylight hours were played by ear. Certain things we almost always did – swimming, poking around the woods and visiting Lily Lake (Arnott Lake on the maps). It was a ten-acre beaver-occupied body of water on the family property, about a quarter mile from Lake Joe. A small creek connected the two lakes, with ‘Lily’ some 200 feet in higher in elevation than ‘Joe.’

A beaver dam kept the smaller lake at appropriate levels. In my youth, two beaver families maintained the dam.  Around the edges of the lake, stumps of small trees stood as testaments to the industrious beaver that felled them, using the tree trunks and branches for their houses or dam construction. If we were quiet and lucky, we might catch the beaver patching small leaks that had sprung from an unexpectedly heavy storm.

Lake Joseph and Lilly Lake provided the foundation for years of exploration, wonder, and the cultivation of lifetime friendships.

The visit…

That afternoon, ceramic cups in hand, we divided Nancy’s ashes between the two lakes pausing for a moment’s reflection as we took turns scooping and pouring. It was for us a holy and sacred experience as she was returned to the land that was embedded in the fiber of her (our) very soul(s).

"She would have been sixty-eight today…" I texted Mariah as I looked at that small vase containing her picture on my desk beside the edge of the computer. A few moments later, she texted me back. The returned text was simply a ❤️.

I felt a tear on my cheek. I know she felt one too.

- ted