Ordinary Days: Anna, #3

God formed Leviathan

   to rollick in the sea.

   (Psalm 104:26)

 

Dear Anna,

Grammy and I are at the Kinser Cabin, or as it says over the front door, “Kinser Kabin.”  I don’t know if you have ever been here. Your mom has, year after year when she was younger than you. Back then, Gary and Janice Kinser and their three girls, about the same age as our three children, invited us to join them most every August to rollick about on The Lake. Your mom can tell you stories.

But today, it’s just Janice Kinser, Gary died near three years ago. We sit around, tell stories of when our children were young, and brag about our grandchildren. The Kinser Kabin is up the road about four blocks from the west shore of Lake Tahoe. If you go upstairs and look out the window of the kids’ front bedroom, you can see a sliver of The Lake between the trees. When we see the water from a distance, we long all the more to get into the water—to rollick about as Leviathan of old. To actually get into the water, you walk down the hill those four blocks onto a private beach with its private peer. We’ve been told, the “private” part includes us; at, least that’s how we go about it and no one has put a stop to it.

Today, we are leery of walking down to the peer because you have to walk back up hill four blocks and we are quite sure Papa won’t make it back up. So we will settle for that little sliver of blue water we can see from that second story kids’ bedroom window; and, reminisce about the times we spent with our families rollicking about in the The Lake.

Maybe the closest our grandchildren have come to such a place is that big old beach house in Mission Beach—big enough to fit all sixteen of us. There we watched our grandchildren grow up together year after year. You were something of a loner at first—retreating into your books. But, by and by, you engaged more and more. You still have your books, but these latter years, you boogie board with your cousins, and surf board with your cousins, and play volleyball with your cousins, and together, we enjoyed all sorts of watery jollifications. The Tahoe magic of your mom and your aunt and uncle has made its way to Mission Beach. Grammy and Papa are blessed to watch such magic have its way with you.

Love Grammy & Papa