Perhaps this entry is about gratitude. Perhaps it is about family. Perhaps it is about memory and simple acts of kindness. Let’s see where it goes on this gorgeous August morning. I used to keep a summer journal documenting garden challenges and successes, granddaughter visits , swims and family get togethers like our annual trips to PEI. In the last few years I have written each summer day in my regular journal and this year’s entries tabulate my lake swims which reached 81 this morning. Today as I took my morning swim the title of this entry came to me. Last night family gathered at the cottage on the river that my sister in law has rented every year since Covid stopped our PEI trips. The gathering is different in many ways but some of the features remain. Washer toss games , pot luck feasts and card games still take place. No Sandspit or pool fun but instead great nephews take a kayak paddle across to an island and we watch him return. Children weave in and out making us smile and help us to remember when the older ones were the ages of the youngest blonde haired beauty with boundless energy and imagination. My daughter drives home to get her daughter’s toothbrush for a sleepover accompanied by her cousin’s four year old daughter and hilarious and memorable conversations take place. And a generous, loving great aunt takes all the kids on a short walk to Fullerton’s market for ice-cream. What a wonderful treasure and lasting memory for those kids. Years from now the walk of anticipation, the choosing of flavors and the devouring of their cones on the way back will be a memory to treasure and a story to tell. I am grateful for each generation that gathered. The oldest, the youngest, the aunts, uncles , nieces , nephews, cousins , children and grandchildren. I am grateful for those in attendance and those who were missing. I am grateful for the fabric of this family’s present ,the hope of the future and the threads of each past memory. And this morning instead of wishing for everything past summer’s provided I truly feel the gratitude for the summer of 2023.
Great Aunts and Ice-Cream
