“Then what?”
The other day a guest at our Lodge said, “I’m going to work to the very end. I’m going to walk from my office to my grave.”
It sounded good. He was a fit and very young seventy-something man.
“Aspirational,” I said to him. “That works until it doesn’t. Then what?”
Tex and I had “working our way to the very end” in mind when we bought the Lodge. Tex was 72 and I was 66 when we opened the doors to guests and became full-time hoteliers. “So,” we asked each other. “Once this becomes too much for us, when we get too old to run this business, then what?”
Our problem was that we didn’t answer the question. We were like frogs in the proverbial hot water. When does something become too much? When will we be too old? Those were not easy questions to answer, especially when we were having so much fun.
Then, one day in the late summer, “Then what?” became “Now what?” Tex had a serious health event. It was his heart this time. His previous issues…hips, back, feet, hands…had never been “Now what?” sort of concerns. We brought Madi (our granddaughter) on board pretty much full time to do all the heaving lifting. She became the hands and feet and creative energy we needed to keep the Lodge open. Planning for “then what?” got kicked down the road.
Thanks to Madi we continued meandering along without figuring out what we would do when we were face-to-face with the T junction at the end of the road.
So, there we were, sitting in a hospital room. Madi was at the Lodge. It was full of guests. Silas (our grandson) was there to garden and generally help-out for the summer. Reservations were piled up for the fall. And there we were, making plans to lock the doors. We couldn’t sell the Lodge. We weren’t ready for that. But we could close it up. These weren’t great conversations but what else could we do? Madi was too young to take over the business. Silas was going back to university. And small islands don’t supply a lot of staffing options.
That’s where we were at until Courtney. Beleaguered and feeling a bit embarrassed to be so unprepared I smiled and greeted Courtney one day at the store. She had just moved on from a long-time job in hospitality. I’d seen her work. For years I had often seen myself in her. The way she embraced people with their quirks and quarks and still smiled.
That day we exchanged “Hi Courtney” and “Hi Syl” and both kept walking. Then I was struck by a light. I literally swung around and called back to her. “Wait a minute. Are you looking for a job? Like say, running the Lodge? I mean like say taking over the Lodge?”
A few weeks later she said yes. And here we are.
Our beloved Lodge…not just our Lodge...Saturna Island’s beloved Lodge…is under new management.
Tex and I and Madi welcome Courtney. We are delighted that the Lodge is in such good hands. Courtney will not only continue providing excellent accommodations and fabulous breakfasts to our guests, but she will also bring the Lodge back to life with evening events. And more. Courtney will bring the Lodge up to date. We’ll be online communicating like modern businesses do. And even more than that. Courtney has lots of ideas of her own. Tex and I aren’t going anywhere so we’ll be here to enjoy what she comes up with.
Tex and I had never gotten old before, so we didn’t know that old has a timeline of its own. Theoretically we understood the concept that we are not in control. But experientially we had no idea. For Tex, the exemplar of the self-made, self-reliant, successful baby boomer, male person, being in control was everything. Being dependent on me for everything was not something he had ever contemplated. Not really. Being dependent on Courtney and Madi—the sort of we-would-have-to-give-it-all-up-if-it-weren’t-for-them sort of dependence—was not something we had imagined. Not really.
These days a good day means a game of Scrabble, a couple of long naps, a drive…remember when your grandparents went for drives and an ice cream? That’s us except I can’t eat ice cream anymore. And reading to each other. We do a lot of reading to each other…Heather Cox Richardson, articles from the Guardian, the latest mind-dump I come up with in the mornings, comical memes from Facebook, excerpts from whatever novel Tex is reading… A good day means a call or a visit from a friend for a game of crib or a shared butter tart.
The mind-blowing realization I have come to from all this is that a good day these days is as good as any of the good days I have ever experienced throughout my life. The good days of my childhood laying in the long grass in our oak meadow; or as a teenager, with friends, at the park, smoking weed, singing at the top of our lungs “in an octopus’s garden with you; or as a mom of curious, beautiful, funny children; or as a career woman and author getting accolades for my hard work…the quality of satisfaction of a good day is just that…this is a good day.