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NH Summer 2014. Grateful. (3 of 3)

Posted by | September 14, 2014 | BAMBINOS | One Comment

Above all, during this stage and phase of the place, I am grateful for a 5th generation spending time at The Cottage.

Lukasz

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Kyle

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I don’t know what the next evolutions will bring, or not bring. I don’t know what any of it really means. What I do know is that I am just really grateful for what The Cottage has been for me, and what it is for my own bambinos now.

I’ll say it again: to squander one’s gifts, particularly the gifts of privilege and power and — importantly — opportunity, seems, to me, to be the worst possible wrongdoing.

I know that very few people have something like The Cottage. I will not squander it. It fills my soul when I see my kids — and I must admit, especially my two Haitian sons — reap the benefits and opportunities The Cottage offers them. I am happy to see their lives’ fullness and their unconstrained capacities, especially knowing what could have become of them, and what challenges lie before them, and the stark contrast those things present when viewed against the backdrop of a week at The Cottage.

Seeing Kyle and Owen waterski really drives this home for me. This summer while I watched my boys waterski behind the boat, I was also cognizant of the tragic drama unfolding in our country with the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri. Last summer it was the trial of George Zimmerman for the shooting of Trayvon Martin. Despite the gut-wrenching realities of what I know could happen, I hope and pray that my boys will live long blessed lives. But even if they do, I have them for such a short time. Whatever gifts we have, they are fleeting. For me, it is an important part of the story of The Cottage: the sharing of this privilege while we have it, the passing down of our own empowerment while it is still there, the gifting of opportunity. We have to make the most of what we have.

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I try to imagine what the first and second generation would think of the fifth generation at The Cottage — of Kyle and Owen especially. I think that in their essence — in the realness of who they truly were, and what they believed in, and the kinds of people they wanted to be — that my grandparents’ generation and my great-grandparents’ generation would be glad with what they’d see. It is a new day, a new generation, a new time for opportunities to be received and used wisely. “With great power comes great responsibility” — we say this often to our three kids. We mean it.

Like I said, at this point in my life, the essence has become everything.

And so it is that in 2014 I am grateful for our annual summer trip to The Cottage. I am grateful for the whole thing, and for all of the details.

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Grateful.

One Comment

  • Kate says:

    Yes it is a true gift and so wonderful to enjoy and I am just grateful to be able to vicariously live through you and see these beautiful photos! Thank you for sharing, Heather. It’s a a beautiful family scrapbook journal post.
    – Kate

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