I was getting an onion from the bin of the Hoosier cupboard out in the entry porch, the brown sugar and mustard, the big stainless bowl, to stir together the baked beans. It was going to be an easy supper . . . burgers and hot dogs on the grill, tons of leftover fresh veggies that needed to be used up, chips and dips. Most of the kids would be leaving in the morning so everyone wanted to stay on the lake as long as possible.

Grandson Jake and his wife Caity come into the kitchen, breathless from a run up the hill, “Dad says we’re supposed to get you for a boat ride.”

“Oh no. You guys go ahead. Next time.”

“He said he’s not taking no for an answer, Gramma. We’re driving you over to the launch ramp to get in the boat. They’re headed that way now.”

“Who’s going to make the beans?”

“I will. I will,” come voices from the living room.

I give a few instructions to the bean-makers when they ask for the recipe. “Chop the onion really fine. A generous cup of brown sugar for this many beans, two big squirts of mustard, a little pepper, then taste it. You should be able to taste sweet and mustard. Then cover the top with bacon. Oven 350.”

I put my sandals on and some lip gloss and climb in their car as an image flashes into my mind: Daddy driving his mama, Grandma Edna, to the launch ramp at the end of the bay to go for a boat ride. She was probably my age.

I haven’t had a boat ride the last two summers, though I was invited often. I usually take advantage of the quiet afternoons to bake a pie, make potato salad, take a nap. And the boat is plenty busy without me. My oldest son and his wife spend a good bit of each day pulling tubers or wakeboarders, ferrying a boatload across to Bigfork for huckleberry ice cream cones.

The water is down this year for the first time that I can remember. It’s a complicated story about letting too much water out too soon at the south end of the lake in preparation for the snowmelt, which was much less than expected. Less snow. Early snowmelt in a warm spell in the spring . . . and by July Fourth, instead of being full pool, it was down more than a foot and still dropping. By the end of July it is down two feet. It is a big deep lake. 28 miles long. 15 miles wide. Average depth 164 feet, maximum depth 370 feet. So, there is still plenty of water to enjoy if the boats can get down into the water from shore stations and boat house ramps.

I remember thinking that Grandma Edna was old back then, as was Aunt Anna Lou when they drove her to the same launch ramp for a boat ride in her 80s. Now my grandkids are driving me over to get in the boat. Normally, stepping off the neighbor’s dock about a foot down into the boat is easy enough . . . just a hand from the dock steadying me, another hand reaching from the boat . . . and I’m in. But a another two-foot drop to the bow of the boat is going to be tricky. There’s been a subtle change in my balance since chemo seven years ago. I count on those hands, just in case. But I’m not old enough to be driven to the boat launch! My daughter still picks out my jeans, for goodness sake! I’m the girl who was the first in the lake my freshman year in high school. The Gramma who demonstrated her “Famous Nordic Beauty Swim” every summer as I would jump in and head out for deep water with my young grandkids in this lake. (It was a comfortable sidestroke that left my head out of the water, the only stroke I could ever do with any grace.) I can still do that Famous Nordic Beauty Swim.

The boat ramp is full, three other boats are queuing up to launch or trailer. From the boat, son Rex motions us over to one of the docks with a two-foot drop . . . and my sweet kids one-giant-step me down onto the bow, hands reaching from boat and dock.

I trail my hand in the water, sun on my face, borrowed sunglasses, white hair whipping. The familiar smell of the water. The warm surface on my fingertips, the cold the deeper I dip my hand. We zip around a bit then he cruises the shore so I can see my neighbors’ places from the water, the old fish hatchery, the new builds, and our old place, of course, Stonecroft. I’ve missed this. I used to live in this water when I was a girl, sunning with my sibs and cousins on Mermaid Rock at the shore. And until this summer would go down to swim or noodle-float and chat with my neighbor on extra warm days before supper. But it’s been easier to say no this year.

Rex decides that getting out at our neighbor’s dock will be just as easy as heading back to the launch. “It can’t be any steeper than the dock there was.” So that’s what we do. Jake and Caity—avid climbers, hikers, runners, and cyclists (who got married at the top of a mountain this year), leap up to the dock to assist me. I am short. My leaping days are over, and stepping up almost three feet from a floating boat is going to be harder than stepping down. I think about jumping in the water and swimming to shore. Nathan holds the boat to the dock, hands reach down, my daughter does the two-hands-on-the-fanny shove . . . and I am up, one knee down for a second, willing my old hip to do its part, then awkwardly gaining my footing.

“Nicely done. Nicely done,” Caity says quietly at my elbow. I know it’s not true, but I believe her anyway. It buoys my spirits. I’ll remember that.

We climb the steps, gather in the kitchen to clean and arrange vegetables, open olives, mix dips, shape burgers. The charcoal is lit. The baked bean-makers ready the porch for supper. Company joins us. The kids take over . . . sending me to sit with a cold drink and my sister and her hubby.

We join hands in a circle for the blessing, filling the porch. When he’s checked that everyone is here, Grampa prays his familiar, short blessing . . . instead of passing it to someone else. It’s been awhile. Feels right. I look around at all the beautiful faces that I love, grateful they are mine. Grateful I am loved. And I know in that moment that they’ll be alright without us someday. But today, I’m grateful that I’m the Gramma they want to drive to the boat launch for a boat ride. Glad that we get to be here for all of this.

The pattern has shifted; we have changed places in the dance. I am no longer anybody’s child. I have become the Grandmother . . . The rhythm of the fugue alters; the themes cross and recross. The melody seems unfamiliar to me, but I will learn it.
–The Summer of the Great Grandmother, Madeleine L’Engle