It's the mornings I love most at the cabin.
We wake up to hundreds of harmonious chirps, clacks and twills as if the birds have rehearsed a symphony just for us. As people sleep, and I write, the cabin is silent.
My grandfather built this dwelling, called Windmill Pines, with his bare hands in 1965. My father and mother, just twenty-something at the time, spent most summer weekends up in Orr, Minn., helping Grandpa.
I am 48 years old. My parents are in their 70s. Grandpa is gone now, but his photo hangs proudly above the table where we eat cabin feasts as a family.
My grandfather and grandmother left this cabin to my mother and all her siblings, evenly dividing the shares. Over time, the other siblings chose to sell theirs. My mother found a way to buy out each of them until, one glorious day, she became the sole owner. She bought the cabin so my siblings and I could create lasting, loving, laughter-filled memories year after year. Memorial Day and Fourth of July have become annual family pilgrimages to "Ash," our lake. My two sisters, my brother and I all bring spouses and our seven children together. When we are there, the cabin overflows with booming voices, card games, pets and fried food. It is less than perfect, but it is always perfectly family: Fishing, four-wheeling, fires, hunting, hiking, hanging out, boating, rebalancing.
A 100-year-old pine stands 50 feet high to my right when I lean on the railing of the deck and soak in the lake view. The pine's majestic trunk is a little farther than an outstretched arm away. I admire the calm waters and cabin-free wooded shoreline of this secret lake — our backyard. Twin birch trees keep the old pine company. Then I see a pair of loons in the distance, feel the buzz of two hummingbirds as they whiz toward the sugar-water feeder, and hear the warbles of a pair of wrens. I always sense Grandma and Grandpa in these pairs, and believe they are watching over the cabin and hanging out with us on the deck — keeping things safe in this healing, nature-infused space.
Deb Sakry Lande, Brooklyn Park
