The guy in the kayak

Back, pre-Long COVID, our family would go every year to the same lake for a week to camp for our Summer holiday. The last time we were there we saw a man leave in the morning in a kayak pulling an older gentleman behind him in a tube. We spent the day playing in the water, canoeing to Butterfly Beach, paddle boarding to the various islands and tromping around as explorers looking for the perfect rocks to eat our lunch. At the end of the day, I swam around one of the islands while the fellas paddle boarded. It was late in the day, as the shadows were growing long over the lake and everyone else had already headed back to their sites, when we saw the same man in the kayak come back towing the older gentleman behind him in a tube. Our guess was that he’d kayaked the rim of the lake. The man he’d been towing was older but not so old he couldn’t have kayaked because of age. We wondered about the situation. It’s one that has stayed with me because it felt important. The energy between them …