When Mama was young her father built his family a summer cottage on the Long Island Sound. The cottage was bare bones simple. Rooms were small, walls were thin, kids all slept up the ladder steep stairs in the unfinished attic.
There wasn?t a flush toilet until I was five or six. And the bathroom, when it was finally built, wasn?t inside the house. You had to go out through the back door to the little shed attached to the back of the kitchen. Nothing but the basics, the toilet and a sink, but heaven compared to the two seater at the back of the lot.
I dimly recall an outdoor shower but I don?t remember using it much. We spent most all day at the beach and if I was crusty with salt, well, that was all part of summer. Every summer. Along with sunburns and lazy afternoons reading in the hammock, a big canvas thing strung between a couple of trees. There were card games and coloring books and jig saw puzzles. There was no TV.
It. Was. Heaven.
Four generations of family called it home in the summer. Aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins. We took turns and overlapped. And when the cousins were quasi adults in college and wanted a private place to?entertain, it became the winter weekend no-tell motel.
It?s a wonder we never bumped into each other.
We went to a family reunion there when FirstBorn was a baby. Flew in from California. By this time my grandparents were long gone. But their children, their grandkids and the great grands were all there.
It was the last time we were all together. People moved away. People died. The cottage was empty most of the year, even in summers. Eventually the decision was made to sell it. The new people tore it down and built their own house. A real house, a year round house.
Sound Beach. Our history grew into our vocabulary. When we liked something we said it reminded us of Sound Beach. Norway reminds us of Sound Beach. The narrow country lanes in my part of California are like the narrow roads we drove there. Wicker chairs. Hammocks. Hot summer nights. We were summer people, we never lived there but it was HOME.
This morning I woke up to an email from my sister, the one in Norway. A friend had been visiting Long Island. Armed with the address and Google Earth, she took pictures of the new place on our old property.
It gave me such great pleasure to see the house they built. A home with flower baskets on the front porch. Painted yellow, almost the same color as the cottage. It sits back from the road, with a lawn in the front. It?s well kept and looks comfortable. Looks like family.
Nana would?ve loved it. Mama would?ve loved it. And me? ?I could move right in.
I didn?t think I?d ever want to see the new house. But life is about growth and change. Moving forward. My family shares the memories of a magical place. But we have moved on.
And now it?s time for others to make memories of their own.
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