A year ago, Steve and I were preparing for a two-week-long family vacation. It was the longest amount of time we’d taken off together, in, well, ever, and it was long overdue. We did everything on that vacation. We hit the ocean for me, the lake for him. We had long lazy days of doing nothing but whatever we felt like in the moment. He had hours of fishing and taking the boat out. We had days and nights with good friends. There was music, there were adult beverages, there were fierce debates, and talks long into the night. At night, we squished into our full-sized bed, with Duncan by our side, and listened to the loons on the lake.

Steve became a big fan of VRBO on that trip, and had spent most of the fall sending me potential properties that were dog friendly and located in other scenic parts of Maine. We’d had such a good vacation, he wanted to do it all again, but a little bit different this time. We never did get around to booking “the perfect place” and I often wonder why we didn’t. Working on the boat and looking forward to that trip was what sustained Steve through most of the pandemic.

Of course, I know that part of the reason we didn’t book it is because Steve was hoping to be starting a new job and wanted to make sure he could meet the demands he expected to have on him. Another part of it was because finding a place that was dog friendly was one thing, finding a place that accommodated dogs, plural, was a different story. Somehow, though, I feel like maybe both of us knew that a vacation wasn’t in the cards for us this year, although I certainly never suspected the reason why, or why no trip we ever take again will feel like an actual vacation.

For whatever reason, I also took way more family photos than we had in the past, and even imposed on the kids to take pictures of the two of us together. They finally managed to get a few good ones that didn’t have part of one of our heads cut off or that didn’t have the focus on the smallest tree in the background while we were just blurs. I even have a few where we are all looking at the camera and for once, G isn’t making his customary goofy faces. All in all, it was the perfect family vacation and has provided all of us with many good memories, especially considering everything that happened since.

For the majority of that trip, Steve and I kept on each other not to look at our phones or worry about the emails stacking up in our inboxes. During our evening trips out on the lake, we finally had some of the hard talks we’d been putting off, like the fact that Steve needed a career change, before his stress level did permanent damage to his health or our family. We talked about me needing to focus more on my career and less on all the extracurricular stuff as the kids were becoming more independent.

We talked about which of the lakeside cottages we could see ourselves retiring to in a few years. We talked about whether we’d live in Pennsylvania in the summer and Maine in the winter or vice versa, neither of us minding a pile of snow if we didn’t have anywhere to be.

We talked about our kids. Having wrapped up a most unusual school year, and having our kids out in public for the first time in over a year made for some very interesting observations and brought a lot of long simmering concerns to the forefront. After a year of being home alone together, we’d all gotten pretty good at going to our corners and fighting for precious moments alone. The 12-hour car ride, however, brought us all back into each other’s orbits, and had us reconnected by the time we got to our destination.

In many ways, I felt like that vacation was the closing of one chapter and the beginning of another for our family. Our last kid had finally finished elementary school. All three of them were now moving into the high school and middle school years. I had made a major career jump, and Steve was preparing to do the same. Things were starting to return to normal after the shutdown of 2020.

The kids were looking forward to band camp starting and Steve and I were looking forward to being able to leave football games after the halftime show because the kids would all be occupied with the band, and we could just arrange to pick them up after the game.

On one of those early fall evenings, we took what would become our last trip to the dairy bar where we’d gotten engaged years before. Of course, we couldn’t manage to be alone. Duncan had to come along for the ride. We had the place to ourselves, thanks to a light drizzle and most of the town being preoccupied with the football game.

As we sat, talking, Steve pilfered a few of my French fries to use as training treats for Dunc, who was only too happy to get to work. I remember teasing him. I mean, who else would be training their dog with French fries on a Friday night, in the rain, at an ice cream shop? Of course, he informed me that it could only be someone whose wife was crazy enough to let him.

My therapist tells me that these are the things I need to hold on to, the good memories, the fun times. I know, deep down, that these will have to be enough to sustain me for the rest of my life, and in many ways, Steve was such a force, that I am probably luckier than most when it comes to good memories. They will have to be enough. But, I can’t help but think about all the French fries that we could have shared.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.