How to say goodbye

A few weekends ago, my family and I trekked 2 hours south of Seattle to say goodbye to our family lake cabin. As I drove the familiar, windy back-roads towards what I knew was going to be a weekend filled with emotions, laughs, and reminiscing, I began to contemplate how to say goodbye to such a place.

My parents purchased a tiny, 400 square foot cabin on Mason Lake one year after I was born. It had no inside bathroom, plumbing water was pumped directly from the lake, and the dock was falling apart; it was the beginning of a beautiful thing.

Every year, I eagerly waited for Memorial Day to come so we could once again open up the doors to my favorite place. There is no smell on this earth like that smell when we first opened the door of the cabin after 8 long months. It was a damp, musty smell that I yearned for; it meant the beginning of summer.

Cow and I often joke that we want to move to Montana someday to raise our families. We’ll build our own log cabin neighborhood and shelter our kids from all the crazy things happening in the world. The cabin was my Montana. There was no cell service, no TV, and miles of the outdoors to explore. My brother and I spent an entire summer carving an elaborate system of tunnels and “rooms” through the brush. My dad and I made tables and chairs for my forts, we made a bird house that has been the home to many a creature, and we built a bench to sit by the campfire.






It was a rite of passage to be able to swim across the whole lake while my mom patiently encouraged us from the paddle boat as she guided us across. I learned to water-ski on the lake, earned the nickname “Little Bear” as I spent countless hours hunting and eating huckleberries, and discovered my love of reading when I spent an entire summer reading in the bow of our boat as the waves rocked me.

We used to drive down every December to cut down our Christmas tree. One year, a bunch of friends and family crammed in for Thanksgiving. Every 3^rd of July, there was a huge firework show on the lake. The very first year Patrick and I were allowed to stay up and watch it, we took a nap so we wouldn’t be too tired and ended up sleeping right through the show. I cried endlessly when I woke up and discovered the injustice!  

 Patrick and I used to sleep out on the deck – scrambling inside in the middle of the night if it started to rain. We used to let our cat, Muffin, roam free all weekend and without fail, it would take us 4 hours to find her every Sunday. We’d sprint barefoot everywhere we went; not caring about the sap that would stick to our feet. One summer I fell off our rope swing and my mom made me go back on it immediately so that I wouldn’t let the fall scare me into never doing it again.

There is no place where I sleep as soundly as I did at the cabin. The shower was the best shower, because it didn’t have a water restrictor on it. Hand washing the dishes because there wasn’t a dishwasher never seemed like that big of a chore.     

As a child, the cabin was my wonderland, never failing to provide endless hours of entertainment and adventure. As a teen, it provided comfort far away from the torments of high school and growing up. As a young adult, it provided a short get-away from the pressures of work and figuring out life.

There are no words for this kind of place.

So how do you say goodbye? I think you don’t ever say a real goodbye. Even though I won’t get to drive down this Memorial Day and smell that familiar musty smell, or wake up on the deck at 2AM because of a summer rain, or trample through the forest hunting my favorite purple berry, I will always remember those things. I will tell the stories forever and it will always be a pillar of who I am. 

My family and I spent the weekend cleaning out 25 years of old water toys and cabin memorabilia. We had a toss or keep vote on everything. Mostly we kept everything though, because you never know when you are going to need an inflatable alligator with 2 holes in it purchased sometime in the early ‘90’s. We had a lot of laughs and shared stories from our years there.

A strange thing happened on Sunday afternoon. As that inevitable moment of the final goodbye approached, the Noland family members peeled off one-by-one. There was no group farewell or big announcement. Patrick had to run off for a meeting, then my Mom had to get going to get ready for school on Monday, and their goodbyes were not significant to the moment at hand. In that, I saw that this is change – life goes on, no matter how much I wish it wouldn’t. There will probably be another cabin, there will be new memories, new smells, new laughs, and new moments. The new will not replace the old, but it will dampen the feeling of loss and turn those feelings into just happy memories of what was a magical place.

When it came time for me to head off, I quickly hugged my dad and bolted for the car. I won’t lie to you – I sobbed. I cried so hard I had to pull over…twice. It was not a cute cry, for I am incapable of those. It was one of those uncontained, snot everywhere, hysterical wails – and I am not ashamed. There is no harm in mourning something that was such a cornerstone in one’s life. I think, some days are just sad days, and that’s ok. Some days cannot be saved by slapping on a smile and pretending to be alright. Some days you just have to let go, and cry it out. Tomorrow you can pick yourself up again, but it’s ok to just let some days be shitty.  

My dad loved that every year when we closed the place down I would wave and energetically say “bye cabin” as we pulled out of the drive way. This year’s wave was a little less jovial and there was a lot more snot than I would have liked involved. All in all, however, it was just a goodbye to the physical structure of the cabin, not a goodbye to its memories.