Memorial and Time

Today is Memorial Day. So fitting that this day has 2 meanings: a day to remember loved ones and a weekend to kick off summer.  Fitting that we did both at once at the cottage this weekend.

Tragically, my husband's father died suddenly in an accident in March.  He was an amazing, loving, smart, beautiful soul and I could go on and on about him. But, this is a blog about a group of non-builders building a cottage. So to stick to the subject, here is an excerpt from the tribute I wrote and read during his memorial service:

 Bob and Andy spent last summer building our cabin on Wixom Lake.  He would stay at our house for weeks at a time.  They would wake up early to study the plans and make Home Depot shopping lists. They would spend 12 hour days building, planning, discussing every angle and 16^th of an inch, and then come back to our house at  night to have some beers, reminisce about the day they had and formulate plans to do it all over again in the morning.  One of those evenings, I asked Bob if he was enjoying this summer of hard work –  I was a little worried that his strong sense of obligation was his main motivation.  “What do you mean?,” he said, “I am spending all day with my son outside in this beautiful summer. I am building a house at age 66. I’ve never felt so alive”. 

Bob is a part of our cottage. It is no stretch to say that we would not have gotten half as far without him last summer.  

Here he is literally pounding in the first nail.....

And here he is taking a picture of the plans months before we broke ground so he could have a copy for himself to study and get ready...... 

Throughout last year he sent us several documents of 2-3 pages in length titled "Cabin Musings 1" and "Cabin Musings 2", etc...complete with links to product web sites.  He was our details man.

Here he is working with my husband by lamp light to get the siding up....

Here he is with my husband and his brother.  Bob was so happy to spend that weekend with both his sons....

And so, we spent this memorial day working on the cottage. You could almost hear his voice talking through each cut...calling out lengths in 16th-inches...helping us understand the chess game that is a project like this - how one move today impacts a part of the project 5 steps into the future. He's not there, of course, but it is the place on earth where we feel closest to him.

As we finished interior framing on the 2nd floor on this day set aside for memorial, I ached with regret that he never got to see it finished, and that I never got to tell him how much he meant to me. I ached with sadness for all my husband's questions that will now have to be answered by someone other than his Dad. As we were putting away the tools and making plans to come back next weekend, I thought about this section of the tribute I wrote for his memorial:

He had big plans to spend this coming summer finishing the cabin with us.  We will finish it -- probably a little slower and with a little less precision – and it will be a standing joyful active memorial to him and his great willingness to help those he loved.  

 

Thanks for reading

-Sarah