When I was about the age that Makaila is now, I went to Camp Kandalore near Minden Ontario for a month. While a month seems like a very long time for a kid to be away from home, I had a cousin who was a returning counselor there and I was quick to figure out that I would miss at least one hay baling so it was okay. At the half way point on a Sunday, parents were allowed to come and visit the campers. I remember thinking that because it was such a long drive Mom wouldn’t make it there until after lunch. But as I stood waiting to cross the bridge to the island where church was, someone came up behind me and gave me a great big hug…it was Mom. God, I miss her.
One night in the midst of our sleep, our counselor burst in to the cabin ranting about the moon being blue and that every blue moon, campers went out onto the lake to see it. That was a hard sell for me because I didn’t see a glimpse of blue in the moon regardless of the fact that other campers did and I no more wanted to be in a canoe on the lake in the dark than I wanted to fly to the moon. I do remember that the moon was full that night and its glimmer across the lake like a million diamonds is something that I still appreciate forty years later.
As fall approaches and our days at the trailer become numbered, we try to squeeze in as much time as we can there. This past weekend as Makaila slept, I walked outside to listen to the waves. In the hush of the night and the comforting sound of moving water I looked up to the sky to see more stars that I have ever seen before. Those are moments that take my breath away and reassure me that there is a heaven. Because I was in shorts and it was cold, I soon headed inside and curled up under my blankets only to remember the “blue moon”. I got up, got dressed and went back outside to enjoy the night. In retrospect, I should have woke Makaila up and tried to sell her on the “blue moon” so that in forty years she would look up into the stars and smile!
