The Little House By The Lake

The Little House By The Lake

I woke up one morning, feeling perplexed and unsettled. Something, that I had seen in my dream that night, has disturbed me no end.

I got off the bed and walked over to the kitchen slowly.

There was a note on the table signed by my husband.

It read, 'Sorry, but I had to leave. Something urgent has come up. Need to sort that out. Breakfast is ready. Love you.'

I sighed.

It seemed like my life had been on a weird re run over the last few days with strange dreams that left me feeling disturbed and uncomfortable.

Over the last few weeks, and for some strange reason, the image of a little home by the lake in our village, where I spent most of my childhood, kept recurring in my dreams. This place was on the other side of the country and had been my childhood home for several years until my father passed away after which my mom decided to relocate to the city in search of a job.

I had forgotten all about the house and soon became a city girl and a woman and now had children of my own and had long forgotten about the house. But 30 years later the image of this house was now haunting me for the last couple of nights. I saw recurring dreams of me playing hide and seek with my siblings . I would close my eyes to count only to find that the house had disappeared on me turning around. And then I would run around searching for my siblings and the house which then resulted me waking up in a sweat.

My husband listened to me patiently everytime I narrated my story to him and would only say, maybe it's God's way of telling you to connect with your roots. The only problem being, my only family was mom and my sister who now lived in the city too. So there was no one in the village.

But I couldn't get over the recurring dream and decided to take a chance and go see the place myself. I told my boss that I wouldn't be coming in work today and then took out my car and prepared for the long drive to the place that was once my childhood home.

It was a four hour drive, but I simply had to do this. I thought of telling my husband about my little plan but he would only fret, so decided to tell him only upon my return.

As I drove I reminisced about those good old days. Our cousins coming over , summer holidays, endless hours of games sans technology and gadgets . My eyes moistened . Times had changed. It was almost noon and I had covered half the route when my phone rang. It was my husband. I panicked. He generally never called up so early in the day and this call was a total surprise.

He would be worried sick if he knew I was driving down alone to this place. It was remote too. But I was comfortable as to me this was home.

I decided against picking his call and sent him a simple message that read, 'I'll call you..'

I continued driving after that and soon reached the lake. It looked completely different. There were a couple of houses by the lake. Many looked abandoned . Undoubtedly, people had left behind their homes, to explore the city for better opportunities.

The lake looked the same. Probably a little better.

After a while I reached my old house. There it stood beside the lake. It looked old but sturdy. There were flowers and weeds that surrounded it and so while it looked like no one stayed there , there a rare kind of beauty about it.

I walked around the house and then chanced upon the swing that my father had built for us when we were young. I wondered if it would take my weight and decided to try the swing whilst I was there. And work, it did. Surprisingly there was not a creak and the swing worked like as if it has been serviced all these years by papa who often oiled the hinges.

I kicked my feet on the ground to pick pace and swing higher ..

The faster and higher I swung, I found worries and other thoughts that were disturbing me melting away. Thoughts about our home loan, our lifestyle, our children's education everything just seemed to disappear. Evaporate.

I smiled as the sunlight shone into my eyes filling me with warmth and joy. It was almost as if I were recieving a hug from my father.

I remembered his words and then a shiver went up my spine when I recollected what he had said to me on the day just before he passed away.

'Make the bet use of your life if every waking moment. Life is a gift daughter. If you ever forget the reason for your existence or your purpose of life, I will be come around to remind you.'

And remind me he did.

Over the last couple of weeks I had been frantically working my self up to extent that I had been hospitalized for blood pressure shooting up on one ocassion. Dad had come in my dreams to show me the way, to let me know that I needed to hit the pause button and savour life for what it was actually worth.

I got down from the swing and walked over slowly to the front side of the house and to my utter surprise found my better half standing beside the lake and looking around.

Shocked i called out to him and said, 'What are you doing here?'

He turned around and looked equally pleasantly surprised to see me there. He smiled at me and replied, 'I spoke to your elder sister and found out about your childhood home . I visited this place about two weeks ago and fell in love with it. I then knew what I had to do.'

My husband showed me some papers that he had been holding in his hand and said, 'I purchased this house from the land lord. This is going to be our holiday home, our little getaway when we need that peace and quiet. I wanted to surprise you by letting you in on the deal closed today and that's what I was calling to inform you about this noon. But i guess the universe has its own funny way of working things out .' He smiled at me warmly and gave me a hug as he whispered into my ear,

Make the best use of your life, it is a gift darling . And if you ever forget the reason for your existence, your purpose of life, I will be around to remind you.'

Tears of happiness ran down my cheeks and I held on to the love of my life.

Life had come a full circle.