March of 2015.
I was sick. I was pregnant. We knew it was a girl. We knew she had Trisomy 18. We knew she would not come home with us. We knew we needed to be within ten miles of a hospital.
And the thought of having to hide at home all summer was absolutely killing us.
We had been trying to find an option for a permanent weekend place on a lake. A lake. Any lake. As long as there was a hospital nearby. The first place we looked at we knew was just not going to work for us, with our always running away then seven year old, with water directly surrounding us on basically all four sides. The concept was great, the location however was not.
A few weeks later we found a campground with a few open permanent sights still available for the coming summer. We decided to drive down after work one Monday and check it out. We left the running away seven year old home with my parents and took along the teenager. We drove the sixty minutes north, and as I sat in silence looking out the window – my mind in its accustomed near lunacy amid our current reality… there were geese flying overhead, and there was much talk and excitement about the coming water foul hunting season.
It was cold and windy that afternoon and early evening. There was still some snow on the ground and some ice on the lake. We met the campground owners and got a tour, asked all our questions, and in the end, we chose a spot, and stepped into their house to fill out a contract and leave our deposit.
We drove away having met two new friends that day, and we also had somewhat of a plan for the summer – with a hospital within ten miles, if needed.
And now eight years have passed. Eight summers we have lived and loved and thrived at that campground. The running away seven year old is now a teenager that can even drive us there every weekend, and the then teenager is now married and visiting with his own family. In all those years between then and now, the runner has continued to do a lot of running, but has also been able to grow immensely and enjoy an amazing amount of grace and love and freedom and friendships while doing all his running.
This lake is a place we have found some healing from our pain and loss of Faith. It’s a place we have found love and grace all over new in our marriage and family. It’s a place of so many new friendships and memories and laughter.
There really aren’t words to describe it all. There are photos of sunsets and sunrises, there are garmin trackers of miles and miles I have put on training and running there. There are record size fish caught there that now hang on the walls. There are scrapbooks filled with a million photographs of our time spent there.
And it is again another March, and the geese are again honking above. The memories of that first afternoon there, again playing in my mind. The baby that was still alive within, the reality we knew we were inevitably and blindly moving (or should I more accurately say “catapulting”) towards, with a timeframe all so unknown and unwelcome and unwanted.
She was born, and she was buried, and we continued on… and have continued on… and are continuing on every day… every week… every month… every season. And it’s just hard to believe we are almost at the start of yet another season at the lake. Soon we will be on that route that will take us from our house driveway in Iowa to our camper driveway in Minnesota. We will open up the camper and we will start a new season of adventure at the lake.
And while I write this… I can’t help but think of some of the loss that has come, and will be coming, to some of the campground families as well this past year. We said goodbye to a long time friend this January. I’m not even sure how many years he and his family have been a part of the campground family – but it’s been a lot. From pop up, to 5th wheels, to the cabin… He was the one I give sole credit to for getting us there. His daily stops in the office where I was working – always talking about the lake… and would later give my hubby the name and contact info of the campground owners, who we would contact and soon meet, and would also become our new friends as well.
We said goodbye to Gene this winter… and now we are getting ready to have to say goodbye to one of those dear friends he shared with us when he gave us the campground contact info. Mike’s health has been hard over the last few years, and now we recently learned they are trying to get him back from their Arizona winter house to the lake for his final days.
Our loss brought us to that same lake so many years ago. It gave us time to rest, time to mourn, time to heal, time to grow, time to create a whole new family of friends. It’s given us so much in our journey, when so much has been also taken. And I can’t help but smile a little smile through my tears every time I hear those honking geese flap and fly overhead, as they too are on their way back to their same lakes for another season.
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