We drove down winding roads with sprawling farms and rolling
hills in Western Maryland on our way to visit Falling Waters, the house
designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I’d never been to that part of Maryland and was
in awe of the beauty as we drove to our destination.
It was a lovely couple of days out
there, a much needed break from everything that had been falling down around
our ears lately. They were all good things, mind you, but they took up a lot of
our mental energy, which can be as difficult as expending physical strength.
Our summer project was to settle
my parents into their new home. Thankfully, they are happy now, but I spent a
lot of time worrying whether this would ever happen. It was an adjustment on
all of our parts. My parents had to work out many details of settling into a
new city. They didn’t count on the merry-go-round that customer service
situations often turn into. My parents weren’t used to spending hours on the
phone to get basic services like newspaper delivery or telephone connections.
And I didn’t realize that every one of their worries would become one of mine,
too.
It had been a long time since I
was in the Appalachian Mountains, and the scenery left me breathless. The
closer my husband and I got to our vacation destination, the foggier and more
distant my worry-filled life became. The fluffy white clouds were huge, and a
few of them were dark, which cast large swaths of shadow across parts of the
mountains but not others, giving the mountains an expression of striped beauty,
the likes of which I hadn’t seen since living in Arizona almost 40 years ago.
It was cold and exhilarating up
here in these mountains, and the views were priceless. My husband kept snapping
pictures; he longed to capture these views on his paint canvases back home. The
beauty was everywhere: on the steep ski slopes behind us, on the shores of Deep
Creek Lake in front of us, and even in the gardens of the inn where we were
staying, where a cute little chipmunk scampered among the profusion of
beautiful flowers.
Lake Pointe Inn was spectacular
and was run by a staff of lovely people. Our every wish was accommodated with a
happy smile and a friendly face. Our room was cozy, with a gas fireplace,
comfortable seating areas, and all the modern conveniences – all in a structure
that was built around the time of George Washington. Our room was called
McHenry, which was also the name of the town where we are staying. Dr. James
McHenry was a surgeon and secretary to General George Washington during the
Revolutionary War. Dr. McHenry built a summer home on the shores of Buffalo
Marsh in 1808, which later became Lake Pointe Inn.
As I noted our private Jacuzzi,
which came complete with homemade bath salts, or while I waited for my Swedish
massage, my thoughts were far away from the week before we embarked on this
lovely getaway. Our son and daughter-in-law and their five children descended
upon our home the preceding Shabbos, and my husband and I were jittery
throughout their visit, though desperately tried not to show it. It was hard
watching them play hide-and-seek in our living room, painful to watch them run
with reckless abandon throughout our home while smearing their dirty
fingerprints on every surface. I watched as my husband kept sweeping the floor
while I tried to keep our grandchildren’s food confined to the kitchen.
I wasn’t proud of myself. I wanted
to be Savta Simcha, who happily invited all children into her home. I wanted to
welcome our grandchildren with my open arms and their sticky fingers. I knew
for sure that I didn’t quite meet those standards. I could tell when my son and
his wife insisted their children eat at the table, not something they
themselves insist upon in their own home. My husband and I resolved to do
better the next time.
Lo and behold, the very next day,
one of our daughters called and said she and her family wanted to come for a
Sunday visit – this Sunday she said, along with her husband and her five children! Hashem has an amazing
sense of humor.
“Of course,” I said with a wide
warm smile. Did I mention that four of her five children are boys? Very, very
active boys. Be that as it may, my husband and I were determined to do better
this time. And we did. Thankfully for us, just when the boys started to get
rambunctious, their parents decided it was time to leave. Whew, we made it, if
only by the skin of our teeth.
Those visits with our children are
priceless. What a bracha it is to be
able to spend time with our children and grandchildren. It’s what every parent
wishes for, warts and all. These are also priceless opportunities to learn and
grow and to move closer, even if only a little bit, towards what Hashem wants
us to be. Priceless indeed.
Zahava Hochberg created the weekly column Musings Through
a Bifocal Lens for the Monsey
Mevaser newspaper. She also created a new section for the paper called “The
Silver Slant.” Zahava can be reached at zahava.hochberg17@gmail.com.
