When I was a kid, my uncle and aunt and my grandparents bought a house in northern Wisconsin, on a lake surrounded by woods. We would drive six hours from Chicago to get there, pulling into the gravel driveway and unloading our week’s supply of bathing suits and summer clothes. There was a small tub of water by the front door to rinse off sandy feet, and the screen door was a bit rickety from all of the slamming as kids ran in and out of the house. Inside, it was small. Two bedrooms, and a bathroom that wouldn’t fit three people, let alone a wheelchair. Not that any one of us had a wheelchair in mind all those years ago. We slept on the floor, on couches, some of us got beds, but I don’t remember how that worked itself out. We watched VHS tapes on a very small old TV in the living room, and played dice and Yahtzee at the big wooden dining table. There were Friday fish frys in the nearby town, and trips to the sweetshop, and later to a winery on top of a hill, where everything basically tasted like grape juice.

We went every year when I was growing up, and I even went up a few times in college. I announced my pregnancy to my grandma and grandpa at that wooden table. When my grandpa got sick, we continued to go to the lake. He could still shuffle down the stairs and the winding path to the water, even with his oxygen tank, but he had to take a break halfway down, so someone (my uncle?) built him a bench. My sister got engaged on that bench. My daughter and I walked down the winding path when she was one. We went on cocktail cruises in the pontoon boat, and I held Scarlett close, our noses touching as we made our way around the lake, looking for wildlife. Now my grandpa’s ashes are in that lake. I can’t go there anymore.

My uncle rebuilt the entire house not so long ago. He is a genius when it comes to woodworking, and the pictures I’ve seen tell me that the house has changed a lot since my time there. The bathroom is bigger, there are more bedrooms. But the winding path remains, along with the fire pit where we would roast marshmallows and make cherry-filled pudgy pies, and where my sister once mooned me from a picnic bench.

For a long time, whenever I wanted to calm my mind, I would think about the lake. The raft that we swam out to, the paddleboats, how it felt to lie on the pier and bake in the sun. Running up the stairs and into the house, where it smelled like coffee and mildew and woods.

I’m writing this from Scarlett’s room, but she is on her way to the lake. It’s her first trip without me or Rob. When my sister asked me if she could take Scarlett with her, I knew what my answer would be even though it felt devastating to send her to one of my favorite places in the world without me. Rob and I discussed it, and agreed that it would be a great experience for her, but he admitted to me that it felt difficult. That he wanted to be the one to go on special vacations with our little girl. It’s hard for both of us to be left behind.

When I said goodbye to her this morning, I cried. It didn’t help that my sister was crying, too. But I’m so happy that Scarlett gets to spend the week with my parents, my grandma, my uncle, my brother and his girlfriend, my sister and her incredible family. We got photos from the airport, three kids in a lounge chair, looking like siblings. Looking just right, like they belonged together and they were on their way to a great adventure.

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