C is for Cottage—Where the Past Still Answers the Door

 “Old people talk about the past because they have no futures and young people talk about the future because they have no pasts.” I’ve probably shared that Ann Landers quote before because it’s one of my favorites. The older I get, the more I understand the scary truth in those words. Sure, I’ve got plans that go beyond daily living, but none of them stretch much farther than whether I can recapture any of my lost art skills or lose enough weight to fit into the box of clothes I’ve got squirreled away under my bed. The former is doubtful, but since I’ve lost seven pounds since December’s weigh‑in at the doctor’s office, that second thing on my Bucket List is a tentative “maybe.”

With so many decades in my rear‑view mirror and only one decade in front of me—if I’m lucky—thinking about the future doesn’t come with the same optimism it once did. Yes, I know it’s all in my head. There are people my age doing exciting things: climbing mountains, jumping out of airplanes, running for political office, traveling the world. Developing a passion project and seeking adventures can happen at any age. On the other hand, it’s very First‑World of me to wish I could find my muse and live happily ever after wallowing in paints and canvas while looking better in a slimmed‑down body.

And yes, I am working up to the C Topic. When I think about the future, it feels hazy. But when I think about the past, many of my best memories don’t live in my head—they’re connected to a place and that place is a small, two bedroom cottage on a lake in West Michigan with a screened-in porch and a ton of oak leaves to rake each fall.

Looking back over my time on earth, the cottage stands out larger than life. By “cottage,” I mean the one my dad built when I was two and remodeled more times than I can count. The place where I spent all my summers growing up. The place where my parents retired and hosted countless holiday dinners and picnics. The cottage has always been the go‑to place my mind wanders when I think of home and family and good times.

If it were possible, I’d track Thomas Wolfe down and tell him he was wrong—you can go back home again. Of course, we all know his iconic 1940 book title, You Can’t Go Home Again, has become shorthand for the idea that once we’ve moved into the more sophisticated world of adulthood, with all its ups and downs, heartaches and headaches, joys and disappointments, any attempt to relive our youthful memories will fall flat. Nothing ever stays the same.

But what Thomas Wolfe didn’t know is that my niece bought the cottage when my dad died and presented my brother and me with keys tied with red satin ribbons that matched much of the décor inside the cottage. It was her way of saying we would always be welcome to stop by, even if no one was home. That was a few years back, and the door has since been swapped out, so the key no longer fits—but I know I’m still welcome.

She’s retro‑decorated the place, replacing the 1970s décor with a charming cross between mid‑century modern and a 1940s post‑war style. I love it. My niece didn’t just give it a face-lift and a new coat of lipstick; she gave it a wide smile and flirty eyes. And her "tweaking the place" is so like her grandmother, my mom, liked to do. Every time I go there, my memories meet me at the door and automatically put me in a playful, summertime mood.

I remember the rainy days of painting or putting jigsaw puzzles together, as well as the long days of swimming and boating. I remember every remodel project my dad did—every window and wall he moved. My mom should have had a house built out of Legos because her hobby seemed to be dreaming up changes for my dad to do. Growing up, the cottage was always changing. And it’s taken me until just this moment to see where my unfulfilled dream of becoming an architect was born. At the cottage, watching my parents measure and draw plans. Built and tear down. Paint and polish.

You might not be able to go back home again, but a visit—even in my thoughts—still has the power to teach me who I am and how I got here. ©

B is for Brother—and All Those PB&J Adventures

After I picked writing about my brother as my second April A to Z blog topic, I searched my archives to see what I’d already said about him. What I thought might take fifteen minutes took half the morning. He appears in fourteen posts, with six of them devoted entirely to him. I was shocked, but it also sparked an idea for a gift I might make for my nieces and nephew. If I gather everything I’ve written about him into one place, add a few photos and a handful of bridge‑paragraphs, I could turn those memories into a short soft‑cover book. At Blurb Publishing, twenty‑five pages keeps you under the price break for small runs, which means I could print enough copies to give one to my great and great‑great nieces and nephews, too, who are old enough to remember their great and great‑great grandfather. (Is there a prize for how many times you can use the word great in a sentence? There should be. Figuring out the lineage was not easy for an old brain like mine.)

My brother and I started life during WWII, and some of the antics we grew up with—think Happy Days episodes—might seem ho‑hum to others who lived through the 40s and 50s. But in an age of helicopter parents, some of the things our parents allowed would seem extreme or even akin to child neglect. For example, several years before I was even a teenager, we could pack peanut‑butter‑and‑jelly sandwiches, grab bottles of pop, tell my mom we were going to walk around the entire lake, and she’d simply say, “Be home before dark.” What didn’t dawn on me until adulthood was that she could probably see us from the shoreline of our cottage as we made our way through alternating cow pastures and woods. Not that it would have helped if we’d gotten into real trouble. Few housewives of the era had cars while their husbands were at work, so the quickest way she could have reached us was by rowboat—assuming it wasn’t too windy. This was long before cell phones or even a landline at the cottage. When we weren’t circling the lake, we were walking five miles to the nearest store for ice‑cream cones or playing at a fort we’d built on the far side of the woods behind our cottage.

As kids, my brother and I were close, but as adults we drifted. Jerry married young—too young—and I went to college. They had the kind of marriage a lot of people have when they marry right out of high school, where both partners eventually look around and wonder if they’re missing something. Nineteen years later, they divorced.

One conversation from my mid‑twenties stands out. Jerry was trying to figure out why I seemed to have no interest in getting married. Most girls in that era listed marriage as their number‑one goal. So did I, if I’m honest, but I was stubborn and wouldn’t have admitted it short of being waterboarded. I’d had a few serious relationships, and he couldn’t understand what was “wrong” with me for not taking the next step. I didn’t tell him the first guy turned out to be an in‑the‑closet gal‑guy. And the second — well, that’s a story too long for this post, not to mention it took me a decade to figure out why exactly that relationship fell apart. 

In the last two years of his life, when Jerry moved into my continuum‑care community, we grew close again. Even though he was in the Memory Care building and I’m in Independent Living, I could see him a couple of times a week and most of the time we could still talk about our childhood, our parents, our marriage and his children. We understood each other in that way only siblings can. He had a good sense of humor, loved his kids and our parents fiercely, wrote great poetry, and was a dedicated caregiver to his second wife, who had early‑onset Alzheimer’s and didn’t make it easy.

And I still miss him because some people leave a space that never quite closes, and maybe that’s how you know they mattered. ©

A is for April—Where My Story Always Seems to Circle Back

 

According to Dictionary.com, a glutton for punishment is “someone who habitually takes on burdensome or unpleasant tasks or unreasonable amounts of work. For example, Rose agreed to organize the church fair for the third year in a row—she’s a glutton for punishment. This expression originated as a glutton for work in the late 1800s, with punishment substituted about a century later.”

I’ve decided I must be a glutton for punishment myself, because I signed up for the “April Blogging from A to Z Challenge.” My first time. While I don’t consider writing “unpleasant,” posting every day is something I haven’t done since I started blogging back in 2004, after my husband’s stroke, when daily highs and lows gave me plenty of fodder. (Well, I take that back. I did the NaWriNoMo challenge in 2013 and 2015. That’s the challenge where you try to write a 50,000‑word novel in a month. I reached the goal once, a first draft I haven't touch since.)

If I understand the rules correctly, here’s how the April A–Z Blog Challenge works: we commit to posting every day except Sundays. The first day’s topic begins with A, the last with Z. All 26 posts connect to a theme of our own choosing. Mine is: “The humans, habits, hidden joys and heartaches that shaped my world.” I apologize in advance to long‑time readers if I revisit a topic or two I’ve written about before. I may have eight-plus years of memories to draw from, but some of them stand taller in my brain, waving their arms and shouting, “Pick me! Pick me!”

I’m starting with A is for April because it has always been an important month in my life. My brother and I both arrived in April, and while I’d love to claim my parents planned it that way, I seriously doubt that in the late 1930s and early 1940s they had many “family planning tools” at their disposal. Some questions you just don’t ask your parents.

And some questions you do. After my mom died (in April in the '80s) I grilled my dad for his memories of raising two kids during WWII, and those conversations became a few chapters in first family history book.

Most of us think of April as the month when the world comes back to life after winter leaves everything colorless and bleak. The daffodils poke up through cool soil, the grass greens up and we rake away the wet, matted leaves so we can dream over the seed catalogs arriving in the mail. As journalist Hal Borland put it, “April is a promise that May is bound to keep.”

But back when my brother and I were toddlers, my parents were dealing with shortages, ration stamps, and blackout shades in case of air raids. Dad was deemed essential in an essential industry, working 14–16 hour shifts making patterns and prototypes for airplane parts and munitions. Mom bought our birthday and Christmas presents at the Salvation Army Secondhand Store. She also cared for two additional toddlers during the week while their mother joined the Rosie the Riveter movement, taking a man’s job in a factory after the "men folk" went off to war.

Fast‑forward to April 1970, when I met my husband. He was also born in April, and we were married in April. We planned to get married between our birthdays so Don would never forget our anniversary and we could celebrate all three occasions at once. But as an 18th‑century Scottish poet said, “The best‑laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” The courthouse was booked, so we had to wait until the following week, and to this day I can never remember the date. In widowhood, remembering the month and year feels good enough, especially since I no longer get boxed, sugary‑sweet Hallmark cards or give Snoopy cards when I could find them. (Note: don’t assume those fancy-ass cards reflected Don’s undying love and devotion. He’d sign them on a Post‑it note because I collected greeting cards and he knew they’d be worth more unsigned. There’s a dichotomy in there somewhere if you care to dig deep enough.)

So there you have it—my first post in the 2026 A–Z Blog Challenge. It clocks in at 923 words (or 629 if you don’t count the first two introductory paragraphs). The Challenge requires 200 words per post. My weekly Wednesday posts usually run 1,200 to 1,500, so I shouldn’t have any trouble there. I’ve got a rough idea for every letter except Q. I’m thinking of asking you (my readers) to send me questions I can answer.

If you’ve got one, let me know. ©