Day 12
Topic: What do you miss?
My introduction to the concept of MDA summer camp was almost accidental. I was a physical therapy student, and someone was coming to talk to us about volunteering for a week as MDA summer camp counselors. The presentation was given in a lecture hall during lunch. I do not recall an active decision to attend. I think it happened by default, I needed a place to eat my lunch, and that lecture hall was where I landed. By the time the presentation was over, I was filled with a burning desire to be a camp counselor. I interviewed with the person giving the presentation and then I waited.
It was finals week when we were supposed to hear back to find out if we were chosen for camp. I remember worrying more about the phone call than about my exams. And I remember the devastation that I did not get a position at the camp. I cried and cried. Then someone cancelled, and I was in!!
I know that the week was not all sunshine and roses, living in a cabin with 7 other “adults”, and 8 kids is not easy. But it was the best week ever!!! I was totally addicted. I was totally into my camper, and I loved all the kids and counselors in my cabin. I put it on my calendar for the next year.
I attended MDA summer camp every year after that for the next 20+ years. (Except my first year out of therapy school, I was low man on the totem pole at work, and someone else wanted that same week off.) Toward the end of those years I spent several years attending two weeks in a row at camp. I finally ended up not going to camp when I married my husband, and the visits with his daughter came during camp week, and I had to stay home and be step mother.
I still want to be at Camp Maria in Southern Maryland when the 3rd Sunday in June rolls around. The ache has dulled a bit over the years, but a part of my heart will always be there. To me it was the most perfect place in the world. We were all working toward the common goal of the kids having their best week of the year. All the trappings of the outside world fell away, and it was just about the people. Not the wheelchairs, not the braces, not what kind of car you drive, or what kind of job you have.
The thing that I keep getting about you over and over is that you are giving. So giving. And you want to help others and consistently put them first. What a beautiful trait to have! And the fact that it comes through so clearly in your writing, and not in a pretentious way at all, is just so honest and real.
And I know what you mean about missing a place like this!! I still miss my summers at Deep Creek Lake so, so badly. 🙁