last day at the lake

Drip, drip, drip. It's our last day at the lake and once again, just like last year -- rain! But that's not such a disappointment, since in fact we came here with a VERY short list of things to do -- sit on the beach, check. Walk through the woods, check. Hit the local fabric store, check. Watch our son have lots of fun, check. Drink a good wine every night, check.

Poor R's allergies are giving him the business, which is sad. And the vinyl chairs at the kitchen table are making my thighs sweat. Apart from that... no real complaints.

And it should be noted that I'm wearing my favorite synthetic-blend knee-length skirt with the big flowers on a black background, a skirt that had been hemmed and taken in several times by its previous owner before it came into my possession. Synthetic blends don't breathe terribly well (and I can't be more specific about the fabric, in part because the tag has faded and blurred to an utter blank). But it's durable, can be worn with either a blouse or a tshirt, and is the former property of a lovely, lovely old woman named Dorothy who died my second year working for the church, at the age of 94. She decided to die. She stopped eating, stopped drinking. It still took two weeks, because she walked everywhere in every kind of weather and she was TOUGH. But no one forced her to go to the hospital, because her friends understood that she wanted to die. Her final days were spent under the tender watch of a much-younger ex-con and truckdriver, a single man who lived across the hall from Dorothy, in the apartment above the furniture store. He was a recovering alcoholic. She had never been married. He cleaned her and changed her and tried not to panic, for days, while she gradually left this world. Theirs was a simple, incredible relationship.

And afterward, because she had no immediate family, I came into possession of some of her sewing supplies, and this skirt.

Meanwhile, back at the lake, the rain continues and the swimming outfits are still draped over adirondack chairs on the patio. "What would it be like to come here in the second or third week of May?" R wonders.