When summer comes, traffic heading north from Detroit gets heavy, but hearts are light. Sand and water, and even an open rural road through a beach town have the power to lift the weary. My family has headed north for more than 50 years, when my grandparents were young and they put six kids in the Torino wagon and told them to shout when they saw the lake. My grandfather went north every summer – even his last. When his doctor told him he had just two months to live, he said, “I want to die at the cabin.” Hospice of Michigan has teams in northern Michigan and they got the cabin ready. For this journey north, I was at the wheel. He looked steadfastly out the window, and smiled at me when he said, “I’ll shout when I see the lake.”
