Most of our summer vacation was spent at my family cottage on Lake Huron. My Mother’s parents built it in the 1950s. I’ve been spending time there most summers for the last 40 years. It is a time for family, as well as vacation.
I’ve chosen to live thousands of miles from my family. I love the city where we live and the life style it offers. But one problem is that my children don’t have a large extended family that they get to see all the time. I continually struggle with how to give my children a sense of family, and an understanding that our small nuclear family isn’t their whole family. I have been surprised and pleased to find our family cottage is a great way to bring all my family into my children’s lives.
When I was little, the cottage was a fun place where we got to spend a lot of time at the beach. In my teens and early 20s, I didn’t think about it much. There’s no telephone, cable, and at that time, no shower. Definite drawbacks for a teenager.
But as an adult, with children of my own, I see it through new eyes. The walls are still paneled with the same wood my grandfather chose when it was built. The stool made by my grandfather, is used by my Mom to get craft supplies from the top shelf of the cupboard, and by my son to sit at the table. The blue boat my sister and I paddled as youngsters, is now used by my children and even their older cousins. My son catches frogs in the same stream I caught tadpoles in as a child.
I know my children see the cottage as a fun place where they have a grandmother who spoils them, betimes are forgotten if they are playing games with their cousins, and cleaning is kept to a bare minimum. Yes, there are bugs to cope with, but there are also marshmallows to roast over the fire.
They hear stories about their great-grandparents who they've never met, spend time with their grandmother, aunt & cousins, watch as decisions are made that will effect the future of the cottage, and simply be part of my extended family.
The time will come when they may loose interest in the annual vacation at the cottage. But when they move into the next stage of their life, it will still be there filled with family memories that they can pass on to their own children.
We are fortunate to have a place filled with memories and history to help our children know their extended family. And it’s comforting to know that there is a place that they will be able to take their children and tell them the same stories.
