Cottage Life

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Running head: COTTAGE LIFE

Cottage Life

Matthew Kelly

Red River College

My children’s mother and my ex-partner Jennifer, was born in at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto on March 18th, 1973. Almost everyone in her family was born in Toronto and they still live there today. Toronto will always be her hometown but it is not Toronto that her heart belongs too. Jennifer’s heart belongs to Belmont Lake, a little cottage community just outside of Toronto. When she was four years old, Jennifer and her mother moved to Winnipeg and they have been here ever since. Shortly after we started dating she asked me to visit her favorite place in the whole world with her. On the drive down to her families, Jennifer told me of her fondest childhood memories at Belmont Lake and how she would spend every summer and spring vacation there with her family.

Jennifer’s grandfather bought the land on the lakeshore and cleared it himself. It was the last lot on the bay at the end of the road that led into the community. Her grandparents purchased the lot with hopes of building a home there that they could on day retire in. They built that home from the foundation up with a lot of sweat and even more love. However, the little tricks that life can play on all of us, threw a monkey wrench in that plan. Jennifer’s grandfather developed heart problems and could not live that far away from the hospital incase of an emergency. So in 1993 they sold the cottage. But no matter who owns the cottage now, it will always be, in her mind, her grandparent’s cottage and the place that she calls home. We went to the cottage that first summer together when we went to visit her family. She took my children and me there to see where she spent her summers as a child. As we drove, she told me how she remembered being a child and hating the long drive to the cottage. Jennifer told me that for as long as she could remember, Toronto has had a cloud of yellowish grey smog that hangs over the city. Which seemed to make the city 5 degrees hotter then the thermometer reads. She recalled that it felt like you were sitting in a sauna in the car but only until you got on the huge 401 highway because then the breeze would cool you down. Jennifer told me that the rest of the ride became bearable because then your were really moving and you knew that it won’t be long until you could sit on the dock and hang your feet in the cool blue water. She told me about how she and her cousin would lay in the back of her grandfather’s old green and brown station wagon and hang their feet out the back window laughing all the way. Jennifer smiled as she recalled waving at people behind them and making faces at them as kids who are bored sometimes do. She smiled even larger as she remembered asking her grandparents every 10 minutes, “are we there yet?” But she told me that they really didn’t need to ask because they always knew when they were getting close to the cottage. She stated that she knew even without looking out the window because the smell was different. It no longer smelled like the trucks that spewed out exhaust fumes or the tar from the summer construction. Jennifer said that the heat seemed to change too. It was still hot but it was no longer sticky when you got close to the cottage. And you didn’t feel like you had to work so hard to filter out the oxygen from the humid Toronto air. Jennifer told me that they always knew they were really close to the cottage when they left the big highway and the car would jump along the old dirt road that was rotting with age and wear. She said the road was like driving across an old mans face with so many grooves and scars from a lifetime of smiles and other facial expressions.  Jennifer demonstrated in her seat how the car would bounce them around and they would pretend that they were rodeo cowboys riding an angry bull yelling “Yee ha ride em cowboy!” She told me that when the long journey ended they would get out of the car and dread the task of unloading the old station wagon. Her grandmother and grandfather would always have the same conversation about whether or not the kids had to help right away or later. Her grandmother would always say, “Oh Dick, let them go play for a bit.” Jennifer smiled again when she remembered that her Grandfather would just grunt and start to unloading the car and her Grandma would wink at them with her sparking blue eyes and say “run along now but stay close.” She told me that they would run off to explore and discover what had changed since the last year. Jennifer said her cousin would always run off to visit with their other cousins that owned a cottage next to theirs and she would always run to her tree swing.

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The old tree swing was her favorite place at the cottage because it was made just for her. Jennifer’s grandfather built it for her when she was six years old. She told me that she could remember watching him climb up to the top of those two old pine trees and nail the two-by-four across them. And how he struggled to get the big yellow rope in the holes at the top of that board and tie them securely. She told me that her grandfather was her hero then and that he still was today. She said she remembered ...

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