Snow Light

When I allow myself to really listen to life I have found extraordinary peace in seemingly ordinary times. So special I stop and speak to my brain “Remember this always. Don’t ever forget this moment.” The image remains in my library filed under, when needed. I open it when the fog, and the fear, and the weariness threaten to turn off the light.

It was January, cold with a light snow falling. I had been with my mother in the hospital for the last twenty hours, sitting in a metal chair, listening to my mother’s struggled breath. Someone from the family would with be with her during her stay as she required help to even sit up. It had been necessary to repeat over and over to the medical staff. “No, she is not paralyzed, she had polio and her muscles have atrophied. She cannot walk to the bathroom, pick her ass up over the hard plastic pan, or lift her arms to get things from her tray.” It was an honor to help her, but it would leave me exhausted and empty.

My aunt came to sit with her sister so my husband picked me up. We stopped by the city’s make shift ice rink to gather up our children. The boys were sitting on the bench putting on their shoes. Joules was skating. It was dark save for a lone street light illuminating her and the falling white flakes.

This snow globe of life encircled me and all the sad left my heavy spirit, gone, though fat tears still hung on my eyelashes.

I can still see her dancing in the moonlight, flying on her skates of hope.