Hambone

 

Behold, I show you a mystery:

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

                                                                     — 1 Corinthians 15:51

 

My nephew Mark is absolutely adorable, with deep brown eyes, blond hair, and a smile that just radiates charm. Once when he was little, he got a magic set for his birthday, and so he set up a grand performance for all of us.

 

After each trick, we'd give him riotous applause, and his goofy grin would just grow and grow. He was such a ham that day that his grandfather nicknamed him "Hambone." It was something special, just between them.

 

Recently Mark, now a computer engineer, had to do one of the hardest things of his life: say goodbye to our family's summer cabin on a wilderness lake in northern Minnesota.

 

The great-grandparents who built it are gone. The grandfather who nurtured him and the other grandchildren up there is gone. The deed to the property is gone, too: it was taken though eminent domain by the federal government to become part of the new Voyageurs National Park. There was nothing we could do to stop it. It was a done deal.

 

For his final stay, Mark and four friends "batched" it for a week, hiking and boating and fishing, making lifelong memories in the spot Mark calls "the most beautiful place in the whole, wide world."

 

 

"Everything tastes better up there," Mark says. "Everything smells better. It's so quiet and peaceful. There's no phone, no TV, no cars going by. Nothing can disturb you. You sleep 10 hours a night."

 

He said it's priceless to stay in a place that has been in your family for four generations, to see bear, deer, eagles and beaver, and to know all the family lore and inside jokes built up over the years. Like the deep outhouse hole dug by a guy named Puny. And the brick under a certain bush by a certain rock that has his great-grandfather's name on it, and nobody knows it's there but us.

 

He remembers the morning he and his grandfather went down to the dock and caught enough walleyed pike to feed the whole family.

 

There's a picture of Mark in an orange life jacket as big as he was, eager to go out in Grandpa's boat. He can remember Grandpa holding him on one knee and his sister Julie on the other, telling them tall tales on the cool screened porch.

 

Holding each other close: that's what family summer cabins are all about.

 

At week's end, packing up was "the saddest moment of my life," Mark said. It felt as though a vital connection to his past was being chopped off with one of the old lumberjack axes in the cabin's workshop.

 

This was where he had grown to love his grandparents. This is where he experienced nature. This was where he felt closest to God. This was where his family rested and renewed.

 

Would the memories fade? Would he ever feel so good, anywhere else?

 

Grandpa, this is so hard! What can I do? Help!

 

As the boat pulled away from the dock, he couldn't look back. "I just thought to myself, 'This is the most beautiful place in the world. Remember it.'"

 

Tears welled up in his eyes. His friends understood. They started down the road. Mark was getting choked up.

 

He had brought a newspaper to pass the time. Maybe that would help. He looked down at a word puzzle on the comics page, folded on his lap. He saw:

 

BONE - HAM

 

As in, "bone minus ham." The puzzle's solution was "boneless ham." But Mark is slightly dyslexic. To his eyes, it said:

 

HAM - BONE

 

The nickname Grandpa gave him! Mark and his friends were in awe. Of all the words in the English language. . . .

 

He has that puzzle on his bulletin board now. He plans to frame it and keep it forever.

 

Did the experience deepen his faith?

 

Mark's a man of few words. He just smiles a Hambone smile, a smile as wide as a walleye . . . and as deep as the sky-blue waters of the most beautiful place in the world. †