The Belanger girls were in rare form last weekend as we gathered in an Airbnb near Baldwin for an inaugural sister weekend.
Baldwin was selected because it is about the half-way mark between here and Grand Rapids, where my niece Alexis lives.
In some ways I felt like the odd man out. My sister, Cheech, is a retired registered nurse. Niece, Alexis is also a nurse. And my daughter, Emily, is an ICU nurse at Munson.
So we were in good shape if anyone were to have a medical emergency.
I say sisters, but honestly, the only sisters among the group were Cheech and I.
Alexis is the daughter of my sister, Philomena, who lives in Arizona. We included her in a group chat.
Emily’s sister, Gracie, lives in Portland, Oregon and obviously was unavailable.
Also absent was my mother, our matriarch, who passed away in 2021.
But she wasn’t forgotten. In my youth, we made regular visits to Lake Leelanau to see my grandpa, who lived in a little house on Louisa Street in Provemont. Part of this experience included a stop at N.J’s Grocery, where previous owner, Wayne Plamondon, manned the meat counter.
He’d whack off a chunk of pickled bologna to go along with the cheese and crackers that we’d soon break open on Grandpa Jerry’s kitchen table.
A copy of the Enterprise was never far away. So, I made a stop at N.J.’s and loaded up on the special treat before heading out.
Nostalgic. Cards were also a big deal when we’d go to Provemont. I remember watching Dad and his Belanger brothers play euchre, but it would be some time before I would be able to solo. They were serious card players. My mother learned from them and in her later years, was known to ruffle a few feathers when she defeated the old men at her Florida community. She was the queen of lone hands.
In her honor, I broke out the snacks and cracked open a deck of cards our first night there. The mother-daughter duo of Amy and Emily had the luck (and skill) that night and were the victors.
After cards, Emily and I bedded down in the lower level of a bunk bed, with her 2-year-old daughter, Josie. Let’s just say there wasn’t much shut eye with a toddler thrashing about… fighting sleep.
The next morning we rose, bleary-eyed and worked on a couple crossword puzzles while drinking our coffee. Mom loved crosswords and we all had a hand in working on them in the later years of her life. She couldn’t see, much but she gave us the answers to fill in the squares.
Josie kept us busy as she ran around in the pine forest around the cabin.
Emily was kept busy trying to corral the sweet little girl that Grandma B. never met.
Sunday morning, as we were getting packed to leave, we resolved to take more sisters weekends, full of belly laughs and love.
