When I was a teenager our dad started building a small lodge by the lake on the edge of our property, then at first he said it was a fishing shack, then he said it would be a guest house, he inspected it for years, constantly making it bigger, constantly improving it, however i could know the fact that our family didn’t really need a lodge at all, however it seemed pressing to Dad.
I guess he preferred working with his hands to being around his family. In order to spend more time with him I started helping Dad with the lodge, most notably with installing the stone fireplace, plus later, the water boiler, but every one of us spent an entire Summer building that stone fireplace, plus it is a Summer I will never forget. Dad was a large fan of going slow, stone by brick, making every detail perfect, plus I came to see that it wasn’t about the fireplace at all; With so many aspects of his life being out of his control, Dad found peace plus harmony in doing things like building a fireplace. He took his time to make it perfect, because he knew nothing else in life would ever be perfect! Maybe I’m getting a little maudlin, however to this unquestionably day I constantly guess of Dad when I see a fireplace. It was a much easier job when he installed the hot water heater. Dad was still working on the fishing shack when he passed away, although I can’t imagine he would have wanted to go any other way.