August 31, 2010

Every year as the summer winds down my husband insists that we take our kids on an end-of-summer road trip.  As the kids have gotten older they've started to push back.  This trip always takes place about a day after they come back from sleep-away camp.  This trip always involves a heroic effort by their mother to unpack and wash about 15 loads of musty laundry and repack for three people (I refuse to pack for my husband as he is a grown-up and can pack for himself).  AND this trip always involves a climb up a mountain.  Yes.  A mountain climb with two exhausted and whining kids.  A mountain climb with a mother who would much rather sit at the bottom of the mountain with a beer and admire the mountain from afar.  A mountain climb with a mother from NYC who would much rather climb her "mountains" proverbially rather than literally or take an elevator up a very high skyscraper and call it a day.

But each year in spite of the protests my husband stoically packs us all into the car (while I whiningly pack us into duffel bags) and off we go. AND wouldn't you know that each year we climb that mountain and it feels so good. The end of a great summer an the start of a new school year not only for our kids but for us. Back to having a schedule. Back to doing homework. Back to the climb.

Last year our Mt. Tremblant hike took about 3 hours - it felt interminable. We ended up taking the Gondola down because it was so long going up. Two years ago was so steep I climbed down on my bottom. Literally - great white shorts ruined (OK, I know why white?). This year was shorter and steeper and scarier at Blue Mountain, in Collingwood, Canada - but we made it. Sweating, whining, crying, laughing.

And we had a great trip.  No internet. No TV.  Card games and time together reading.  As we drove back we got a call that a friend's father had passed away.  A loved man.  A great man.  We hurried home to make it to the funeral the next day.  We sat listening to tributes to this man.  His grandchildren, who loved how he loved them.  His children, who live how he taught them.  One of them the youngest, choking back tears, told the story about how he and his siblings would go to camp and each summer after returning from their camp sojourn their father insisted they take a family road trip. They argued and complained but they went along for his rides - as a family, together, a ritual to end the summer.

What a gift that man's life was.  His funeral was a celebration of life.  A moment of reflection and perspective.  And a chance to finally tell my husband....honey, you were right.  A road trip and a mountain climb - what a good way to end the summer.  Here's to the climb.

As first published in the Democrat and Chronicle and USA Today Network.