good bye bridge

Today, after packing suit cases for 7 people and cleaning two cabins and taking 7 people out on the lake for several hours in a borrowed boat and making "good bye pancakes" for the whole compound and replacing dog track divots in the precious green lawn and disassembling a "pop-up" tent and pushing "just one more time" on the swing for all 5 bestcousinfriends and deflating all 15 inflatable beach toys, Wonder Uncle and I loaded the Suburban Gold Honda Oddessy mini-van. We strapped each child into their safety seat, settled the black lab into his tiny space under the feet of the 2 year old and left behind the comforting embrace of the cabin and the lake and the loons and Oma and Papa.
With all 5 bestcousinfriends shouting, "Good bye, Papa! Good bye, Oma!" we began the long migration back to civilization.
Everything that we passed got a vigorous and prolonged "good bye."
"Good bye neighbor's house with the lady who makes good homemade strawberry jam and white bread that she gives us us eat while we swing on her swing set."
"Good bye merry-go-round that the quiet old guy in the hat and suspenders oils all of the time so that we can go really fast."
"Good bye sandy beach with the really good digger truck and the teeter totter that Esme keeps falling off of and the fire at the Fourth of July and the turtle under the dock as big as a large pizza and the weeds that Shadow buries his duck in - under water."
"Good bye long dirt road to the bridge that we walked on with Oma every morning and picked wild flowers and sang silly made-up songs at the top of our lungs and saw 3 deer crossing and heard the wind in the trees that sounded like the ocean."
"Good bye bridge, see you next summer."