uncle sandwich

Little Jay and his friend Sarah

This weekend was our last weekend at the lake, closing up for the season. TC didn’t want to leave. He wept on his mother, sprawled across her and his brother on her lap. I brought him Kleenex and told him I understood. His mom told him she understood too. His dad said he didn’t want to leave either, but he had to be on a plane to Colorado tonight for work. “We gotta go.”

At the lodge in Hayward: Tim, Lydia aka Kari, TC, and John

We headed out to the yard and his mom asked if he wanted to tell the kids good-bye? Little Jay spotted him crying, trotted over and lifted him up in a hug against his chest. Then he yelled to James, “This kid needs a sandwich hug!” James ran over and they wrapped their arms around each other, TC squashed between them, and jumped up and down. Little Jay hollered, “It’s an Uncle Sandwich! We’re Uncle bread, and TC is the peanut butter!” In a minute they let him slip to the ground again and he ran the rest of the way to the car laughing.

Big Jay and I stood out front and waved as the child beamed out the window yelling at us, “See you later!”

I wiped only one tear, then wandered back inside to finish packing with Kirsten…wipe out the fridge…scrub the bathrooms…

We won’t be back until April. All the days between now and then, the sun will rise and set, shadows moving across the rooms in silence.

The lake will freeze, snow will fall…the snow will melt again and the lake will thaw in the five months before we return.

Sigh. Gosh it was hard to drive away. On to the next thing, I guess. Love, Val