Hide & Seek

Jun 11, 2025

Susie, Richard and Cindy—a rare moment inside.

Way back when I was a kid growing up in Louisville, Kentucky summers felt like Mom opened the screen door in June, shooed us outside and called us back in after Labor Day. We were always playing outdoors and one thing I recall playing was hide and seek. There were variations on the game—sardines, flashlight tag or just simply running away and hiding from someone because you didn’t want to play anymore. (Kids can be so mean.)

Another variation on this game is what I’m about to do in a week or so—hide out in Maine. Turns out June is also the cruelest month and this week alone is hitting hard. My sister’s birthday, the date of Annie’s Celebration of Life a year ago, Father’s Day and Luca’s graduation from middle school. That last one is mostly a wonderful and exciting occasion, but for the last few days, all I can think about is how Annie should be here to see it. Don’t worry, I’ll pull myself together in time—I won’t be the sobbing Gramma in the fourth row waving to her embarrassed grandson. But it suddenly feels like it’s all showing up at once—even though, as I’ve mentioned before—I have a calendar. These dates are not surprises.

I’m lucky to have a place to go when the world backs up on me (and the Universe won’t leave me alone). I always downplay having a cottage, because I was raised by Swedes and we don’t brag or put on airs like, “we own a cottage in Maine” even though it really is just an updated fishing camp. Some of the walls—still—are literally plywood. It needs a TON of work and updating, but I think the reason it continues to look largely like it did when my parents bought it 40 years ago is because it’s not the cottage that we love. It’s the setting. I mean, it’s nice to have indoor plumbing, but unless it’s raining we spend most of our waking hours outside. And, for some of us, some of our sleeping hours. We are lucky to have a tiny spot on an island on the shore of Sebago lake that faces west and the White Mountains beyond. The water is clear and crisp and we are surrounded by blueberry and huckleberry bushes, old pine trees, young birch trees and pitch pines—trees that have irregular growing trunks but are pretty cool looking. (When you’re not worried they’re going to fall on your house.)

The most important tree that is there is Annie’s tree. We planted a Japanese Red maple with her ashes and it’s growing in a sunny spot near the cottage, protected by all those other trees. Tony and all their friends created a space around her tree that invites coming over to sit by her and at night it lights up with a lantern and some string lights I strung around the setting. When I join her for coffee in the morning, there aren’t too many ways I can be seen by anyone except maybe the loons across the lake or the hummingbirds visiting the feeder I hung nearby. Hiding out there for a couple of weeks feels like just a good way to attend to the depths of loss that I’m reminded of fairly regularly right now.

But I suspect I won’t just be hiding. I believe there will be some seeking, too. For the first few days I’ll have the aforementioned middle school graduate with me and I am pretty certain those days will be filled with activities that will prevent me from dwelling too much on what I’m hiding from. We’ll be seeking fishing spots, ice cream cones and available pickleball courts. After he leaves, I’ll have my books and my journals and my next project in tow—putting together the memoir Annie wanted to publish before she died. I’ll be seeking ways to organize it in a way that she would want and then I’ll be seeking ways to publish it.

Only Charlie has reservations about what to think of this child. Everyone else? Enchanted!

And at the end of my stay, another June birthday girl, Aria, will be arriving with her parents for the last few days of my hideout. We just celebrated her 2^nd birthday and what a little miracle she is, with the most well-developed side-eye I’ve ever seen in a child. How lucky I am to be surrounded by so much in my life that I am grateful for. I never consciously sought out gratitude as I’ve made my way through grief and loss, but it keeps showing up.

Even when I’m hiding from it.

Silver Linings

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