It’s All About Family
When our children were very young we bought an old one room cabin on a lake. We wanted a place to get away from town and the sometimes undesirable influences of the city malls, and TV. It was a place to bond as a family, have some fun and enjoy the beauty of Alaska. We were looking for a “time out” from the world and “time in” for family. The cabin was old and small (12x15) and had no amenities. We cooked on a gas burner, had no oven or refrigerator, no running water, no electricity or heater, and we had the added joy of finding our way up a trail outside to use the outhouse. And best of all there was neither telephone nor TV…. and that was a good thing. When it was time for bed we pulled out thin mattresses we had stacked alongside a wall, laid them down and pulled out sleeping bags. The beds covered almost the entire floor space of that tiny cabin. We slept shoulder to shoulder and had to tiptoe around if we got up to avoid stepping on one another. Joseph, our youngest, found his favorite place to sleep right between Orie and I on the one permanent bed in the cabin… safe from spiders, mosquitoes and a possible wandering mouse.
We played in the lake during the day and had a great time inside the cabin at night with no outside distractions or temptations. At night after playing games together for hours we would lie down all snug in our beds and talk until we finally fell asleep. It was cozy and warm and filled me with joy to have our children all there with us talking and laughing and enjoying being together. The children enjoyed hearing Orie tell them stories about his youth as well as a series of stories he made up about a boy and his dog. It reminded me of the old TV show “The Waltons” where at the end of each show they showed the house and you could hear all of them saying goodnight to each other as they went to sleep.
It was like that in our old cabin….a comforting feeling of being loved and secure and knowing all was well because you were together safe and sound. Sometimes there were rainy days and storms that kept us inside and I actually loved them almost as much as the sunny days. On those days we stayed inside playing games, stoking the fire and reading books. I read the book “Summer of the Monkeys” to the children several times and they read it to themselves many times afterwards. We read scriptures and discussed gospel topics and told stories we all made up. It was a bonding time. As the children grew into their teenage years they often brought friends to the cabin and we managed to squeeze them in using double-decker camp cots and adopted them into the family for the day.
Our kids often reminisce about those times at that old cabin and how much they loved it there. There was something special about being there and it wasn’t the niceness of the cabin. It had to do with the feelings and fun we had being together. I treasure those times of being close to our children and having them gathered with us.
