The Forever Days: A Memoir of Soul Healing and a Lifetime of Summers at the Lake

By Mary Rosenberger St Onge

A True Story of Wisdom, Healing, and Inspiration.    

 

The Forever Days is an intimate reme

• Language: English
• Publisher: Capucia Publishing
• Release date: Mar 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9781954920583

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Praise for The Forever Days

"The Forever Days is a lovely read, chronicling the author’s childhood summers at a lake in Minnesota and the life lessons she carried into marriage and motherhood. Written with wisdom, honesty, insight, and grace, this is a book of family relationship, spiritual seeking, and equal parts grief and joy—all set on the shores of a lake that feels for all the world like home."

— Debra Landwehr Engle, author of The Only Little Prayer You Need

"The Forever Days is a love letter to all that is good in life and the enduring love that remains with us, even in times of turmoil. I felt like Mary St. Onge takes us back to a place we’ve always known, either from events in our lives or from the deep knowing of our soul. She calls to life the transcendent healing of simple experiences: swimming in a lake, eating popcorn, playing cards, or sitting in a screened-in porch. And throughout her tapestry of memory and love, she takes us into the deep work of being alive: facing pain, mending relationships, and opening our hearts to the beauty before us."

— Tama Kieves, USA-Today  featured career/creativity coach and bestselling author of numerous books, including Thriving Through Uncertainty (www.tamakieves.com)

Copyright © 2023 Mary Rosenberger St Onge

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author and publisher, except by reviewers, bloggers or other individuals who may quote brief passages, as long as they are clearly credited to the author.

Neither the publisher nor the author is engaged in rendering professional advice or services to the individual reader. The ideas and suggestions contained in this book are not intended as a substitute for professional help. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be liable or responsible for any loss or damage allegedly arising from any information or suggestion in this book.

Capucia LLC

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York, PA 17402

www.capuciapublishing.com

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Paperback ISBN: 978-1-954920-57-6

eBook ISBN: 978-1-954920-58-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023902699

Cover Design: Ranilo Cabo

Layout: Mary Alethma Asagra

Editor and Proofreader: Susan Bruck

Back Cover Author Photo: Julia Auerbach Photography

juliaauerbachphotography.com

Book Midwife: Karen Everitt

Printed in the United States of America

To the family who formed me, the teachers who informed me, and the fellow travelers who transformed me.

Contents

Introduction

Part One Journey of Reflection

1950-1999

Chapter One True North

Chapter Two Road Trip Memories

Chapter Three Twin Pines Lodge

Chapter Four The Early Days

Chapter Five Ladies of the Lake

Chapter Six Boys Will Be Boys

Chapter Seven True Story

Chapter Eight A Man of His Times

Chapter Nine Be Sweet

Part Two Path of Interconnectedness

1998-2021

Chapter Ten Gratitude

Chapter Eleven The Lower Dells

Chapter Twelve Community

Chapter Thirteen The Vibe Tribe

Part Three Portal to Peace

Chapter Fourteen Twin Pines Yoga

Chapter Fifteen Letting Go

Life Lessons of the Lake

References

Acknowledgments

Contact the Author

About the Author

Introduction

Eastern Half of Lake Vermilion

On the one hundredth anniversary of our family’s summer cabin, I’m writing this love letter to my blood family, to my family of friends and neighbors, and to the waters that brought us all together. It is the place where I have enjoyed the most laughter and joy in my life, and it is the place I return to when I need to heal life’s wounds and sorrows.

Join me on this journey of a lifetime of memories, unforgettable characters, the struggles of being human, and the healing properties of this magical, natural world. I share this story from my heart, as I remember it, and with gratitude for what each and every moment has taught me.

May all beings find a place in nature that fills their hearts and feeds their souls.

PART ONE

Journey of Reflection

1950-1999

Chapter One

True North

A person standing on a boat Description automatically generated with low confidence

John St. Onge

There is a Chinese proverb: Tension is who you think you should be; relaxation is who you are.

That one can take a few decades to unwind.

In our youth, our lives are orchestrated by the dreams of our parents. We are conditioned to fulfill the vision of the life they think we should lead. So, you follow a blueprint that is ingrained by your family and your culture. You plod along and with each milestone—education, marriage, birth of a child, career—naively believe you’ve got it knocked. But in truth, life is not linear, and there is no finish line.

You spend years building a family, a network of friends, and a comfortable home, and then life throws you a curveball. To quote Anne Lamott, If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.

Before that day in 1998, from all outward appearances it looked like our house was in order—a man, a woman, and their child living in an inviting home with cozy couches, book-lined shelves, an eclectic mix of music on the stereo, and every convenience modern life could offer. A welcoming space filled with friends and laughter. A place where you would want to pull up a chair and stay for dinner. The pots were warm, but the hearts were shivering.

The decline of a marriage usually takes years—years of unspoken resentments, inattentiveness, and shifted priorities. Some marriages go out with a bang, but ours went out with a whimper. Which left me, a menopausal woman of 49, and our prepubescent son (a bad combination in the best of times) in uncharted emotional territory. Although we still lived each day in the comfort of familiar routines, our proverbial wheels had come off.

I sleepwalked through those days, unable to bear the weight of not being able to hold our family together. My son, John, took on the brave stance of acting like everything was normal. He never expressed his feelings and answered my queries about how he felt with, Everything’s fine, Mom. Meanwhile, I vacillated between making sure he was still breathing while he slept and pulling the covers over my head when I heard him call, Mom!

He spent hours in front of the television. Our only conversations seemed to revolve around the latest episode of The Simpson’s. Let’s just say there was a lack of communication.

Routine became our sedative. I spent too much time working, trying to prove to myself that I was good at something. John anesthetized himself with video games and movies.

That day in 1998 when his father Mark moved out, John and I helped him settle into his new apartment. After we placed the couch in his new living room, John sat down, folded his hands in his lap, looked down at his shoes, and asked, Tell me again, why we are doing this?

He had never seen us yell or be angry or intentionally cruel to one another. We had just stopped looking in the same direction.

Mark continued to come to dinner at the house two or three nights a week. Let’s keep everything as normal as possible for John, we thought. As if to say, Look! We are all having dinner together. We’re laughing and talking. Just like the old days.

It took us a long time to discover that this charade was just compounding the pain and confusion that John felt from our divorce. We didn’t realize that our actions might leave him distrusting love. We wanted so much to shield him from hurt that we didn’t allow him to grieve the break-up of his family. And as I know all too well, grief unexpressed is grief delayed.

When I wasn’t working, I put in a lot of couch time, holding my life up to the light like a prism, trying to understand how life had brought me to this moment. But instead of rainbows, I only saw darkness, so I tried to hide my life’s prism from myself. But I must have put it under my pillow, because gloomy thoughts crept into my bedroom at night while I tried to sleep. Voices telling me that I was a bad person and a terrible mother and how could I do this to my only child? He doesn’t even have a sibling to complain to!

So, I compensated by over-mothering. Each morning, I laid out John’s clothes, buttered his toast, and sent him off to school like he was going off to war. After school, I chauffeured him to acting class or a friend’s house and took him to Target whenever he asked. Each Saturday, we stopped at the Dairy Queen after his Japanese class for a chocolate shake, and we’d talk. Mainly about Bart and Lisa.

We were stuck.

All I know is, like a soldier in a foxhole, I wanted my mommy. I’m sure John did too.

My mother, Katie Rosenberger, had died five years earlier, and I tried to conjure her up in my heart, as her advice was always good and right and true. I remember being present for her death, where, once again, she taught me how to live.

It was the day before Mother’s Day in 1994 that my brother Gary called to tell me that our mother had suffered another seizure. She had started having ministrokes in March, and my father had called an ambulance for her a few times that spring. This last time he called the EMTs, they arrived just before she had a grand mal seizure. She saw them standing over her chair, and she looked up and said, We’ve got to stop meeting like this.

This time they took her to the hospital, and the doctors thought she might not make it through the night, so Mark packed us up and drove all night from Denver to Sioux City, Iowa. When we reached the hospital, Mark and John remained in the waiting room, and I stopped at the nurse’s station to get directions to her room. The antiseptic odor of the hospital permeated the air as I walked down the corridor. I feared I would be too late to say goodbye, and I feared I wouldn’t be and would have to witness her suffering. As I went into her room, I saw Gary and his wife, Connie, tending to her.

We hugged, and they stepped away from her bed so that I could see her.

I approached her bed, shocked to see how small and vulnerable she looked. She lay there barely making a bump in the bed. Her room smelled of death, and her every breath was labored, but her heart beeped like a metronome on the monitor hooked up to her frail body. I stroked her head and said, Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

To everyone’s amazement, she awoke, looked me in the eye, and exclaimed, Mary! then drifted back to sleep. This was her first conscious moment since her seizure.

In her last days, the family, minus my brother John, who was halfway around the world in Thailand, gathered to say our goodbyes. She drifted in and out of consciousness, but her lucid moments were quintessential Katie.

John, at seven, was her youngest grandchild. His paternal grandmother had died two years earlier, and he had always enjoyed a very special relationship with my mother, even though they lived far away and saw each other infrequently. I was hesitant to have him see her in this condition, hooked up to all those machines. I thought it would scare him. I went out to the waiting room to explain the situation to him.

Grandma Katie is very sick, and we may not see her again. Would you like to see her now? I asked.

Yes, he said tentatively. I took him by the hand and brought him into her room. He hesitated at the door when he saw her, his hand still in mine.

Mom, I called out. John is here.

And before opening her eyes, she asked, Which one?

It’s John-Boy, Mom. She opened her eyes and looked toward the door and gave him a long, penetrating, gentle gaze as though she were memorizing him. Then she smiled and drifted back to sleep.

Her oldest grandchildren, Gaye and Kirk, arrived, and we all stood around her bed and told old family stories. She appeared to be sleeping fitfully, but every so often she grunted as though to tell us, that’s not how it happened; you’ve got it all wrong.

Later in the day, Gary’s son, Gregg, an Air National Guard pilot, arrived. As he entered the room, my brother said, Katie, the Captain is here. She opened her eyes and, with Herculean effort, threw him a perfect salute.

That night, we all left for dinner. We can’t let her die alone, Gaye cried. Her love for her grandmother was reciprocated in full. Being the first grandchild, they had a special relationship. Gaye, Connie, and I planned to return to the hospital after dinner to keep watch over her.

Everyone left to go to the restaurant, but before I left, I went into the room, took Mom’s hand, and explained to her we were all going out to dinner, but would return to tell her goodnight.

She looked at me with sardonic resignation and said, Tell everybody I’m a party-pooper.

Those were her last words, although she stayed with us a little bit longer.

On Friday, the next day, we all went up to her room, and Gary brought chocolate-covered donuts, her favorite. She had taken no solid food since Monday, but we enjoyed them in her honor.

Everyone but me left for dinner around 5:00 PM. I stood by her bedside, stroking her head, telling her to go see Nana. I felt her pain in my own body as I watched her struggle for each breath. There were times I wanted to put a pillow over her face just to end her suffering.

About 5:15, her color changed, and she got beads of sweat on her upper lip. I knew something was happening.

I went out to the nurse’s station, and a young nurse came back to the room with me. She looked at Mom and said, I want you to call your family now. I called Gary, although I don’t remember making the call.

I remember her last labored breaths and a single tear coming out of her eye. I thanked her for the life she gave me and told her it was okay to go. Then her eyes opened, and she gazed up toward the ceiling with a look of absolute awe in her eyes.

At that moment, I was filled with such gratitude. Thankful she was no longer suffering and had the opportunity to say goodbye to those who loved her most. And most of all, I was thankful that she had been my mom, my first best teacher.

Being with her to witness her passing was her last gift to me. The look in her eyes at that last moment told me something magnificent was happening. My most dreaded fear had always been of death. Witnessing that moment of her passing took my fear away. And at that moment, the meaning of life appeared to me in great clarity: Life is about who you love and how you love them. It’s that simple and that complex.

Soon Gary walked into the room. She’s gone, I said, and his head snapped back as though someone had hit him. Dad came in, and I led him to a chair. He looked at her.

"I was praying for this to happen—but I don’t