Tom’s parents have a lake house on the same street as the lake house my parents have owned since the 70s. Tom and I were actually dating when his parents bought the property, and when they did we just decided to get married because otherwise it’d be too awkward.

When I was a kid, my dad would throw all of us kids in the back of his pickup truck, including our giant Labrador, Jake, and take us to the lake. Throwing your kids and dog in the back of a truck was totally fine back then because 1) we were in the country 2) kids were tougher back then 3) that Sarah McLachlan commercial wasn’t going to air for at least another 20 years.

As soon as we started driving, Jake would start celebrating. If there’s a spectrum of celebration, “dead and cold” is on one end, and “Labrador on the way to the lake” is on the other. When were about three miles away, Jake would start barking, running back and forth in the truck and climbing up on top of us to see if he could get a better view.

I tell the story about my childhood dog because I can’t think of any other way to describe David’s relationship with the water. The first time he went in the water this summer was at my parents’ pool. He loved it so much that his excitement almost drowned him. He kept splashing and squealing, “I’M SWIMMING! I’M SWIMMING” and, even though he was wearing a life jacket, with all the flailing and shouting we had to pull him out of the water every thirty seconds or so to make sure he was still breathing.

He loved the lake just as much. Half the time he swam naked because all he wanted to do was eliminate all the steps between not-swimming and swimming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He loved swimming, splashing, and best of all jumping. He would run from one end of the dock yelling “GERONIMO!” and leap into the water. Over and over and over, until he needed to refuel with a bag of Cheetos; then he’d be right back at it. He jumped off higher and higher parts of the dock and then the pontoon until Tom and I decided that he’d gotten extreme enough, and we needed to limit him before he hurt himself and (as we called it) “ruined his jump.”

And the jet ski, the tube, and boat rides? He was a fan of those too — just so long as there was a spray of water pelting him in the face. That’s kayak rides were only tolerable at best. Because why would you ride in a kayak when the alternative is being sprayed in the eye with lake water?