excerpt from Life on a Wisconsin Lake, by Margie Petersen White

Our sense of being lucky on the lake sustained us in difficult times.  One very sad summer, my mother spent her last days of life floating on the lake.  She had a brain tumor, and by the time August came, she could barely walk or speak.  My dad would lift her into her floating chaise lounge, complete with cup holders in each armrest, and she would spend hours being rocked gently by the waves.  The days were gloriously hot and dry and sunny, the kind of days you would want if you had only a few left on earth.  The lake was perfectly behaved, it was deliciously warm, and the waves were neither too big nor too small.   I don’t remember any pea soup that August at all.  At the end of each of these last days, my mother would exclaim with utterly pure gratitude:  “That was another ‘triple A’ day!” The lake took care of her and we were thankful.  Later, we would trust the lake to cradle my mother’s ashes in its warm, sweet embrace.

Comments

[Gigi]

Beautiful.