The More Things Change …

It had been almost a full year since we’d last been to Chautauqua. And that’s a very long time for us. We left in a hurry one Friday last July when our friend’s mother was in the hospital, shortening our vacation by a few days to be with them.

And then August came and our house was newly on the market so we felt pressure to spend every Saturday mowing and mopping to prepare for Sunday’s open house. Then September, and we got the keys to the new house and wanted nothing more than to delve into cleaning and painting and wallpaper-stripping. Suddenly it was October and unexpectedly cool and rainy, forcing the cancellation of a possible weekend or two at the lake. And before we knew it, all hell broke loose and we found ourselves hospital-bound for the following six months.

So a year goes by and we’re somehow older and somehow wiser and everything seems different and everything feels so, so the same. We arrive late Friday night and the boys go scurrying off to revisit their bunk beds, where they sleep squashed together on that oh-so-sacred top. The next three days are filled with trips to the waterfront to throw rocks, boat rides to Bemus Point for ice cream cones, and endless firework displays from all corners of the lake. We eat breakfast, lunch and dinner out on the porch, usually before a spectacular sunset. We venture indoors only long enough to watch some equally spectacular World Cup soccer matches. And everything is as it’s always been.

We are a family of four, alive, together and ever hopeful for the future.