Making memories

As daylight dwindled, I sat alone. The crickets chirped their lullaby. The campfire flickered gently. I savoured the peaceful evening and happily pondered the lively afternoon spent with our daughter Stephanie and her girls (ages 9, 7 and 5). September in Ontario had started off with a late summer heatwave and our grandkids enthusiastically churned up the pool with boisterous play.

Jack set up the campfire and we roasted hotdogs for supper. Hanna looked at me with her gappy grade two smile and said, “Nana, what’s your best memory from when you were a kid?”

“That’s a hard question,” I said, “I have a lot of good memories from my childhood.”

“Pick one,” she insisted.
I thought for a moment, then said, “Well some of my favourite times were in the summer when my dad would take me to the beach and I’d spend all day playing in Lake Erie. When my lips were blue and my fingertips looked like shriveled raisins, he would make me come out and eat lunch. As soon as I could, I’d get back to the waves.”

My granddaughter seemed unimpressed, spinning her hotdog idly over the coals. Guess I should have told her about the time I swam across Lake Erie all alone and the dolphins helped me fight off the sharks. But I didn’t want to brag. She looked at me with mischievous eyes, “What’s your most embarrassing moment?” And just like that, silly stories erupted from everyone.

With their tummies full, Jack piled the girls into the side-by-side and tore off to the woods at the back of the farm. The sound of laughter and excited shrieks drifted back across the field. (Pretty sure the girls were shrieking, too.) They returned with an assortment of apples and stories of all the new trails Poppa had taken them on. Good time had by all.

The archives

Now sitting by the fire, I reconsidered Hanna’s question. True, I had a lot of good memories to choose from, but how could I call just one “the best”? I have no spectacular tales, but aren’t all the memories special? That’s how they’ve survived through the mists of time. What’s more, some of the not-so-happy memories are the most important ones. That’s how it is when your God promises to use it all for your good and his glory.

Sifting through my mental archives I realized that most of my fondest memories involved family and friends. There’s a whole section dedicated to my kids and eight grandkids, not to mention 45 years of marriage. This Thanksgiving we’ve booked a cottage to come together as a family and celebrate those stories in particular – all those ordinary times that add up to a storehouse of extraordinary blessings. I look forward to watching my grandchildren laugh and play together until they’re breathless and sweaty and have to be forced to go to bed so they can get up and do it all over again the next day.

Maybe someday Hanna will have a child ask her about her best memory. I hope she’ll have a hard time choosing which one to talk about. Maybe she’ll tell about campfires and playing with her cousins after dark and knowing that her grandparents loved them all to pieces. Here’s to making memories and to the Memory Maker.