Go to the Lake

Where's your safe harbor?

“Go to the lake” has been a clarion call for my family all our lives.

If you need to get out of town. Go to the lake.

If you need to escape the heat of summer. Go to the lake.

If you need to connect with high school and college friends. Go to the lake.

If you need to recharge from work. Go to the lake.

If you need the support of family. Go to the lake.

If you need a gathering spot for the holidays. Go to the Lake.

If you need to escape nuclear attack or hide from the Russians. Go to the lake.

Wait. What?

Hide from a Russian invasion? Yup. Go to the lake.

I remember as if it was yesterday. Ha. Now three weeks shy of turning 62-years-old, I remember it more clearly than I do of some of my actual yesterdays. That summer in 1965 Grandma was only four years older than I am now. I wonder if in four years, I will trade in my Minnesota Vikings t-shirt, jeans shorts, and Sketchers for a sensible one-piece undergarment, dress, mid-heels, and nylon stockings that Grandma wore at that age. Time will tell.

“Grandma, how come you never go swimming?” I asked her in our Detroit Lakes cottage as I pulled out pajamas from my little suitcase.

“Oh I used to swim in the lake, but I guess it’s been a long, long time,” Grandma said with a smile. She looked out the window at the shadows growing longer down the green lawn, sandy beach and the darkening blue waters of Big Detroit Lake.

“But don’t you like being here anymore?” I asked.

“Oh Dearie I love being here at the lake and always will,” she smiled and patted my head. “It’s just when you’re older, you tend not to go jump in a lake.”

Grandma laughed so I did as well.

“But Grandma, what do you love about the lake if you don’t go swimming?” I continued to probe.

“Oh, a lot of things I guess. I love to feel the summer breeze that flows in through the cottage windows; it cools me and causes our glass wind chimes to sing,” Grandma said, again looking out the window.

After 9 p.m., the sun was just setting behind the East-facing cottage on White Clover Beach. The waning sun still cast warmth and light on the cottages across the lake, making them appear larger, clearer, and closer to us.

“I guess I love watching and listening to you and your brothers and sisters on a hot sunny day as you whoop, run and jump off the dock into the lake over and over again.”

“I love jumping off the dock,” I said, nodding in agreement as I pulled on my pajamas and hung my shirt and shorts on the corner knob of the top bunk.

“And on a cool night like tonight when I’m tired at the end of a long day, I love that you kids wear out and quiet down to listen to the crackling logs and watch the flames dancing in the fireplace.”

“I guess you love looking at us and the fireplace, huh Grandma,” I said.

“I guess I do,” she laughed. “I love my family and I love this cottage. I’ve always felt safe here and that it’s an escape from the world.”

“Isn’t it safe at home?” I asked.

“Oh of course it is Judi. Your home is a haven, don’t you worry,” Grandma smiled and held my hands reassuringly.

“What do you mean that you escape here?” I asked.

“I just mean that well, that it’s an escape from our normal activities and that it can be a safe place for us,” she said choosing her words carefully, but again returning to her statement that the lake was a safe place.

I looked up at her, and watched, saying nothing. I could tell Grandma was thinking about more.

“Well, not that it will ever happen, but if we were ever to be attacked by the Russians, I’ve told your dad, mom and aunt that I want all of us to come down to the lake. We’re more protected here. At least we are more out of the way than in a city if Russia were to release nuclear bombs on us,” Grandma said.

“The Russians might attack us,” I stammered. “I thought the war was only in faraway places like Viet Nam.”

“Yes, Dearie. Wars are not anywhere near us. We are safe. I shouldn’t have mentioned it to you. Just forget I said that. The only thing to remember is that if you ever need to be with family, you should go to the lake. The lake is peaceful and here we are away from most of the world.”

Grandma gave me a longer than usual hug and then kissed my head.

“Now, climb into bed and sleep well.”

I pulled the sheet and white chenille bedspread up around me. While I felt cozy and safe that night and indeed slept well, I never forgot Grandma’s instruction to go to the lake in times of need.

Over the years, while our lake place has changed from that little cottage on Detroit Lakes to lake homes on Long Lake at Vergas, our family has continued to go to the lake for holidays and vacations, graduations and retirements, and weddings and honeymoons. And funerals.

When Dad died in 1998, Mom did not want to go into the log lake house they had built only 11 years before.

“Without your dad I don’t think I can step foot in the log house again. There are too many memories, and it will be too empty,” Mom said the day after Dad’s funeral when my sister Angie and I drove Mom and Angie’s twin sons to the lake.

“That’s okay Mom,” Angie said. “But it’s such a beautiful fall day, how about we spend a little time outside by the lake? I brought hot dogs and smores to cook over the fire pit.”

“Yeah, it’s up to you Mom but look at Jon and Zach playing in the sand. Those little guys are really excited to be here,” I said, pointing toward the beach.

“Judi. They are newly minted five-year-old hellions,“ Angie retorted. “They are excited to be anywhere.”

“I guess it’s a nice day to stay a little while and run out some of their energy,” Mom said, revealing a bit of a return of her grandmotherly responsibility.

“We could go up to the house and call Terry to have him tell us how to start his fishing boat motor, and then we can tool around the lake,” Angie offered after we had been sitting for about 20 minutes and her boys had made a sand castle on the beach, and had stashed enough gritty residue in their britches to build castles there too.

“Oh, we don’t need to bother your hubby, we can figure it out on our own,” I said to Angie confidently.

With Mom watching the kids, Angie and I lowered the boat lift and I climbed in. After snapping life jackets on everyone, Angie handed over her floatable cherubs to me and helped Mom climb aboard. I felt a little nervous when our boat floated a few yards from the shore, before I figured out how to start the motor by switching a couple of knobs and yanking the cord a few times.

With that we were off on our afternoon sojourn. Autumn showed us its finest colors, from the vivid reds, oranges, yellows, greens and browns of the leaves on the trees, to the calming blue skies, laced with wispy white clouds, to the brilliant blue and white capped waters of the lake. It was breathtaking and memorable.

If that weren’t enough, a Bald Eagle appeared and followed us as we cruised along the miles of Long Lake shore. The eagle disappeared for moments by flying past the treelined shore, but he never left us for long. It was like he was saying, “Phyllis and kids, it’s me, Ted, and I’m happy and still around to watch over you. Do not fret. Do not fear. Instead, celebrate at the lake.”

When we got back to shore in the long shadows of the setting sun, two things happened. One. Mom was able to walk peacefully into the log house so that we could spend the night there. Two. I had to drive the boat back and forth in front of our property while Angie called her husband to have him instruct me how to turn off the outboard motor. Starting it was one thing. Shutting it off was another.

In 2009, several family members helped fill city sandbags when Fargo’s mighty Red River flooded. A few others took their kids, Mom and Aunt Margie, all living near or in the flood danger zone, to the lake where they stayed calm, safe and dry. It may seem counterintuitive if you who don’t live in the Red River Valley or Minnesota lakes country, but Grandma’s mantra rang true decades after her passing. What happens if the Red River floods? Go to the lake.

Then in March of this year, when, as a nation, we woke up to the realities of Covid-19, Mom suffered two minor strokes as she struggled with the lockdown policies of her retirement home. During her 5-day hospital stay, I talked it over with my wife Kathleen and my brothers and sisters, and I decided to drive from Colorado to Fargo to take Mom to the lake where she could recover and ride out the first months of the pandemic.

“Going to the lake has always played such a part in our lives,” Mom said today, sitting at the head of the long dining table in her lake home. The table was loaded with medicines and medical paraphernalia rather than kids, grandkids and great grandkids.

“Our family history and many of our best stories are entwined with being at the lake,” she said simply.

And so it goes.

Taking care of my almost 92-year-old mother during these past few months has been a gift to me. I am calm, hopeful, and have purpose helping her navigate during uncertain times in the last period of her life. Being at the lake has been the perfect place for Mom and me.

Next week, Mom will return to her retirement home and I will return to Colorado. It is bittersweet. But you can bet if times get tough, we will again, physically or in our minds and hearts, go to the lake.

If you are in search of a place to heal, find peace or purpose, or to simply let go and have fun, I wish that you too can go to the lake.

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