I grew up in Detroit, the city of Detroit, Michigan, and never had my first glimpse of Lake Michigan until my first teaching job. I fell in love then. My second year of teaching, I rented a house with a couple of other teachers at the end of a long road in Montague, this — which was close to- close to Lost Valley Beach.
Lost Valley beach is a private- private beach. Pristine. It’s for members of the Lost Valley community only. I was smitten. I would go down to the beach as often as I could, sit on the dunes in the quiet, watch the waves either lapping quietly, rolling in, or sometimes thrashing, and contemplate the big questions of life and the little questions of life. By that time I had abandoned God, but as I discovered sitting on that beach, God had never abandoned me. After I moved away for another teaching job, Lost Valley Beach kept calling to me.
I purchased a small parcel of land in a property association in the Lost Valley community. Not on the beach, but very close to it. And for the next several summers, I spent my entire summer in a camper at Lost Valley Beach, becoming a part of the community, and still in love with the beach, and the water, and the dunes, the whisper or roar of the waves. I stopped going when the — my property association rules banned campers.
Fast forward several years, I got married, had a child, sailed with my husband on Lake Huron for a few years, and then we just did not do much after we gave up the boat when our daughter was born. We were busy raising a child. The call of the lake and Lost Valley Beach was still strong. I finally convinced my husband to rent a cottage there, so we went there for several years. He fell in love with it. My daughter fell in love with it, and sometimes she would bring friends. Later, her boyfriend, who is now her husband.
And we went there until my husband passed away. I didn’t go back to the beach for quite a few years afterwards, but I just — it never left me. I finally convinced a friend from England who had never seen Lake Michigan to go for a day trip to Montague and to Lost Valley Beach, and it drew me in all over again. And I realized that I had to, I had to come back. Now, I rent a cottage every year at Lost Valley. I bring my daughter, her husband, and my grandson, who have all fallen in love with the beach as much as I have. We are making memories there, and I hope that we will continue to make memories there for a long time to come.