Every year, our family tries to arrange a weeklong gathering in August. It’s a much-anticipated event for everyone to be together on Monhegan, one of the most favorite places we know. Sometimes we have needed to adjust, as we did last year with the arrival of two wonderful additions to our crew, Vera and Winslow, our first grandchildren. We adjusted and managed to employ alternate plan B for visits on the fly, one grandchild in Maine and one in Brooklyn, New York. This year we are looking forward to having everyone together, including our newest little ones.  

A few years ago, we also needed to adjust our visit to the island. The Wik Wak cottage was not available.  Fortunately, we were able to arrange a different location which has worked out well.  

We arrive, as many often do, at the Balmy Days pier loading and unloading dock looking like outtakes from the old TV series “Beverly Hillbillies.” You can imagine bringing a week’s load of supplies — sheets, food, clothing, etc., in boxes, suitcases, freezer chests and backpacks. Including, remarkably, our super pup Leica the wonder dog! We know Mr. and Mrs. Balmy Days, the captains, and many of the seasonal helpers. They understand!   

Everything got loaded and we hoped for a smooth crossing, which it was not! About halfway to the rock my darling wife started to go a little green, and out of nowhere a beautiful fluffy sheepdog, also a bow rider, settled its head on my wife’s lap. The owner, who we did not know, approached Susan and asked if she was OK, which she was not. George (the pup) is a therapy dog, and he sensed someone in distress. And that’s how we met Emily, and George, referenced in today’s accompanying photo.  

Emily is a therapist, too. She has a remarkable accumulation of extensive life experience. Landing in Maine only a few years ago after she and George had traversed the United States with multiple stops along the way, living often full time in Emily’s red Toyota pickup, during COVID, no less. With national parks closed, there was plenty of open space for Emily and George just inside the gates of many of our country’s most glorious, preserved monuments.     

Emily grew up in Pennsylvania, but she and her family spent lots of summers in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, a place very familiar to me. She sailed Hobie Cats endlessly and became deeply attached to oceans and aquatic life. So attached in fact, that upon graduation from high school, she attended the University of Rhode Island to study marine biology but got distracted by anewfound interest in writing. Transfer time! After a few tries at other schools, she landed at Penn State to study journalism hoping to travel to the Middle East with a program intended to help women learn to read, write and share their stories. But, as luck would have it, or not have it, one of her professors shot down that idea, and Emily was off to the races. Let the traveling begin. Savannah, Georgia was the next stop for three years, then Kansas City, the Parks (in her loyal red 2010 Toyota Tacoma) ending up for a while on the west coast in Washington State, down the “101” to Baja hoping to catch a glimpse of the whales, then off to more travels while writing her master's degree papers online with Wake Forest University.

She was a bit lost, missing a home base. Then by chance a family member suggested Maine and contacting a friend in Boothbay Harbor. She took a job at Greenleaf Inn doing everything under the sun at the back end of COVID when help was hard to find. 

After Emily graduated from Wake Forest with a degree in social work, she needed to apply for therapy jobs and landed with one of our own, Lindy Graham, in Portland, with a practice called “WellSpace." And here she has remained to help us make safe crossings to Monhegan, be close to her east coast father,go to Ocean Point and help others navigate challenging waters, with George at her side. 

Welcome home Emily.