A Lesson By Once More to the Lake

Destiny Dominguez, Staff Writer

In the recent days of Mrs. Camp’s English class, we have been reading E. B. White’s “Once More to the Lake,” a narrative essay that has been proclaimed as one of the best in its genre. From first glance, the essay seems to be a sweet story of White revisiting a lake that he used to frequent with his father as a child, but now with his own son. Throughout the story, White reminisces over the past while realizing how the place he grew fond memories in has changed. But after closely reading the narrative, we saw how there was a deeper meaning to the story than meets the eye. White displays an underlying theme of how the world will constantly be growing in a circle, and that death in inevitable.

After hearing these deep themes that were presented through a simple storyline, I would tune everything out as this reality would hit me again. It was not until this summer, after I was in a car crash, that this truth had hit me. The weeks that followed after it had hit me were somber weeks as I would sulk around, too depressed to do anything. At that point in my life, I had started fearing death because of the fact that an afterlife was not certain. I had started searching around for some sort of comfort through religion, science, or anything. The only answer that provided me comfort was an answer through religion. I would go through a journey for spiritual relief just for an answer that many do not care for. But while I researched every religion for what their belief of afterlife was, I would always come back to Christianity. Every other religion had answers that would bring me peace, but Christianity was an ideology that seemed to answer all my questions, especially an answer of what lies after death.

Though I had an answer for what was after death, a simple question still stood: “When my time is up, will I have done enough?” The answer cannot be answered until my time is up. With this new question that stood another theme presented in “Once More to the Lake” – growing up.  As I grow up, I face other challenges that might keep me from completing everything I want to in life. Will I make my parents proud? Will I accomplish all my hopes and dreams? Will I live life to the fullest? None of those can be answered, but it gives me a reason to live life without regret. We only have one life and like in “Once More to the Lake,” we must cherish every memory. At the end, the only thing that will answer how the question if we have done enough are those memories.