Granny's tears

“This is my Father's world—His own design, But in His goodness He has made it mine!” -Faye Carr Adams

Every year my whole extended family on my mother's side gathers at our lake cabin in Clarksville, Virginia. Due to the ever expanding nature of our family, with grandchildren popping out like pez, we have expanded for a third time the once little cabin that my late grandfather Papa built with his own hands. According to Granny's fuzzy memory of dates it was around 1957 when my grandfather was stationed in Washington D.C. that he first spotted Kerr lake as it was being carved out by the army corp of engineers. He had the perfect view from the air since he was a fighter pilot and could fly over the area extensively and pick the exact cove that he thought would have ideal fishing conditions. He decided against the ladies votes to not buy property in Myrtle beach and instead purchased vacation location property in the teensy town of Clarksville.

While beach front property in Myrtle Beach would now fetch a mean mint in property value I believe that our lake front land is priceless and there could be no value placed on the times spent and the love that resides in our cabin. We used to go to both the beach and the lake for our family vacation but as my cousins and I started getting older, myself in particular, we found the easy access atmosphere of the beach conducive to all kinds of trouble.

After darkness fell and much worrying, my aunt had to hunt down on the beach my 11 and 13 yr old female cousins as well as my 15yr old self and 14 yr old sister. When she finally found us meandering in the sand getting offers to join every “kegger”, while a Marine and his friend were flirting away with me, beach days ended in her mind then and there. (In the young Marine's defense I did look older than my age.) We never vacationed at the beach again.

Out of the 23 family members who now use our lake house maybe God knew I just couldn't survive Beach vacation living nor could anyones stress levels survive with me there either. I think that Papa made the best decision in choosing the lake over the ocean. The serenity and the ultimate calm that can be experienced staring at the undulating water or standing toes deep in the sand and only hearing the sounds of nature is hard to find elsewhere.

Even as a child I knew there was something beyond special about the peace that can be found deep in the woods in our once little cabin perched up high, overlooking the vast and quiet lake. I fell in love with how I could almost hear each raindrop pelt the metal roof or listen as a acorn plopped and the rolled down off the angled eaves. The real world can't seem to find us there beyond the winding tree tunneled roads because cell phones and the internet just don't want to work. You can leave your cares, stresses and connections behind and truly relax while dozing in the hammock swinging beneath a rooftop of living green.

“Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise,
Who loves the rain,
And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes.” --Frances W. Shaw

My aunt who has taken the role of picking out all the tile, paint, etc. for the new construction wrote in an email, “All of this is fun, until Granny cries.”

When my grandfather first built our modest cabin it started as four rooms with two bedrooms, one bathroom, kitchen and combined living room. The first and second editions added on only two more bedrooms, another bathroom and a larger family room. But this current edition is not an addition -it is beyond even a renovation, it is a whole new huge 7 bedroom two story house. Granny tears are because all the vestiges of Papa handiwork are gone. The only thing lingering of what the cabin once was is the kitchen, which looks dramatically out of place in this new fresh and open vista of super size square footage.

“The sober comfort, all the peace which springs
From the large aggregate of little things:
On these small cares of daughter, wife or friend,
The almost sacred joys of home depend.” ---Hannah More

I started writing this email before I left to go on our annual family vacation to the Lake with the hopes that I would complete it before I saw the house and would only write about Granny's tears. I did not expect that my own would mingle with hers in losing what is now lost. Gone is the paneling and quaint bedrooms, gone is the green carpeting and moldy tile, why do I mourn their loss? I have 30* years of memories there, 30 different vacations spent in those walls that now line a dusty dumpster because new sunlight yellow walls have taken their place. I might actually get to sleep in a bedroom with a door that can stay shut and not have people wandering through it at all hours fumbling to get to a bathroom or an early breakfast. Good ole' walk-through bedroom, now I will miss you and your bustling activity, which I once found Oh, so annoying.

Memories, memories, so many memories.

There was a tree that is now only a stump which my cousin and I still point fondly at and recall how so, so long ago I had given her the first taste of alcohol late one night, which she lost there later. We still remember the tree and the night in which it imprinted itself on our memories. The tree is gone, like the little cabin but we still remember.

The history of our handmade house is exactly where it has always been—it is in our hearts. It is in our minds. It is in our cherished memories, and in all our stories. The walls may have changed and Papa's fingerprints may no longer be found on the rafters, but his blood still flows in all of our veins. Our hearts still beat with that blood and as long as they do it will always be Papa's pool. We can not forget what is in us and a part of us.

I cannot stop the sands of time
Nor stop the evermore increasing lines,
That pave their way across my face,
That I behold and grimace with distaste.
Changes, changes, grow and grow,
Let me not with tears sow,
Seeds of yearning for the past,
Yet look lovingly to the future beyond my grasp;
Please permit me to embrace,
The Lord's ever merciful, divine grace.
-A*

Lord, let not the growing pains distract us from the abundant blessings to come from our growth. Please help us to see Your goodness in any and every change. Quell our grumblings and in the silence that remains, reveal Your glory and divine destiny in us.

Heaven helped me 8/8/08
Love Always,
A*
*I say 30 years because we didn't go one year due to the water level in the lake being too high.