Jerry and Lynn Crane near Yellow River, June 2016.
My folks were both born during the “Greatest Generation” (1919-1945). Each started life from very humble beginnings. Betty Lynn Ready (later Lynn Crane), had parents who divorced when she was a toddler. She lost her only sibling, a half-brother to polio, when he was 3. Her mother’s second marriage ended soon after and years of tight home finances, with a working single mother during the 1950s would follow.
Bodies of water would become a long source of calm, comfort and respite for young Lynn. A strong swimmer, Lynn Crane would take the backstroke with my brother or I as toddler’s standing on her abdomen. Growing up in a non-air conditioned home, we were quite fortunate to live next door to a pool (behind the home of my paternal grandparents). And we spent almost every summer day there or at the community pool, and I am reasonably certain this was an early strategic choice.
My father’s parents introduced us all to another family love, Jekyll Island, and Lynn loved little more than daily morning and evening strolls along the beaches of Jekyll. When retirement beckoned, the Jekyll vacation home was traded for one on the Gulf Coast and St. George Island, and the white sand beaches there were even more of a draw for our mother and by now grandmother.
IF NOT for all her children and future grandkids residing around metro Atlanta, Mom would have likely convinced Dad toward a beach retirement, as a body of water had to be nearby. Instead, Jerry and Lynn Crane found a large and comfortable home on the Yellow River, along the eastern border of DeKalb and Gwinnett counties in 2001. When declining health began to make beach drives impractical and flights impossible for Mom, Dad started hunting for a lakeside home on Georgia’s great lake, Lake Sidney Lanier. And Dad soon found one, perched high about the boat docks and yachts of Harbour Point.
At the onset of the pandemic, Mom and Dad moved to their lake home to ride out “the storm.” Some ill-fated unpacking decisions by Mom ended with a broken hip and ambulance ride back to her doctors in Emory, followed by a lengthy recovery and rehab. Dad became more accustomed to the quieter life on Lanier, looking out on the water below and having morning coffee with a nice breeze and his dog Chewy at his ankles. By mid-2022, Mom would leave us all and transition to a better view from above. More recently facing health challenges of his own, and now on the edge of 86, I find myself splitting my time and life with a day or two per week in Gainesville and across Hall County with Dad.
Mom can’t join Dad for coffee on that deck anymore, but I am reasonably certain that she can see his reflection as he looks out over the shimmering lake, reflecting the manses and the faces surrounding that harbor. At least from the smiles I see when he comes back inside, I’m pretty sure he feels she is still here or nearby.
