Hi, everyone. Welcome to Thanks for being here. A short weekly pod to remind us of the many essential and beautiful ways we affect one another.

Every Sunday, I'll read a submission from a listener of Kelly Corrigan Wonders. Could be wedding vows or about mitzvah toast, a eulogy or retirement speech.

We believe this is the loveliest way to tap into our better selves and remember our highest values.

We encourage you to share this podcast each week with one person you love. Maybe someone you miss or need to bring closer.

Someone you want to feel your appreciation or admiration or both. This is Thanks for being here.

For this week's Thanks for being here, we have an essay to share from a high school junior.

Her name is Claire Murphy and she is a kid who really loves this lake house where she spends time in the summer.

And this is about saying goodbye after a great week. It's called blood is thicker than lake water.

After that white knuckle goodbye, I started to notice that my fingertips long to trace the broken wood cracked from years of goodbyes much like mine.

Cracked from family after family rain storm after rain storm summer after summer.

The house was far from perfect and missing puzzle piece here and there.

Some absences accompanied by a hastily scrawled note lost a couple pieces sorry dated back a couple decades ago.

Uno cards shoved under couches left to live among a handful of dice and a rather comfortable family of dust bunnies.

The catch cushions were misshapen carved from years of 2 a.m. conversations and sandy feet.

I remember running my hands over them wondering if the previous guests were equally heartbroken to leave a place that is so far from perfect.

The lukewarm showers have no effect on the pure glee that comes with seeing nearly 30 shoes lined up by the doorway separated from their sand covered owners left in the foyer for a thrillingly complicated game of cards.

There's nothing quite like seeing so many people you love under one roof saying prayers to the same God and drinking coffee from the same pot corner grocery stores and nearly burnt s'mores and shared baseball hats are all part of this week long game of ketchup spewing out story after story and soaking up every last detail about these people whose faces looks so much like mine.

My cheeks hurt from smiling my feet sore from a week's worth of beach days yet I can't remember a time when I have felt more whole I want to exist among the driftwood left to float in this place that God breathed so much radiance into that I imagine he was out of breath.

This place these people I want to capture their smiles in a bottle their voices in my hand hand in hand prayer woven into prayer i'll tell you if you tell me this existence it smells of sunscreen and soda of happy tears and wooden chairs of the king of diamonds and a wicker basket.

Humidity coats my skin and curls my hair the sweet air dusting my tongue with the taste of chai and early July June bugs sway in the breeze waltzing to the sound of the waves I don't have those in California I wish I did the last sunset radiates and bounces along the water making me squint my eyes as I feel the lakes kiss for the last time.

Bowser made promises are solidified the last game of cards is one the sun dips past the horizon line winking as it lulls into nothingness light seeps into the floorboards marking its path alongside granules of sand and more than a few missing puzzle pieces.

I mutter in oath that I will be back here that I will come back and live forever with the damp bathing suits and backwards baseball hats my knuckles are white.

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