Separating the Two

Friends,

I went for a short walk this morning. The walk ended up being short - only a mile - because of the driving wind and snow. It stirred some memories.

We lived in the country back then and getting snowed-in happened fairly often. During one snowstorm my brother, sister and I all came down with a nasty fever and we didn't have any aspirin in the house. No cars moved on the road up the hill. My father bundled up against the cold, strapped on a pair of cross country skis and struggled into town. He was the only person on the road. We recovered from our fevers and had a good time together as a family with dad as our hero.

We heated our little home with wood. Keeping up with wood cutting ended being a year long task. In another harsh winter we found ourselves without enough cut wood to get through the winter. With temperatures at 40 degrees below zero and snow as deep as four feet or more, getting into the woods proved difficult. Our house, usually snug despite the cold, had ice forming on the inside of the walls. Buying a load of pre-cut wood was out of the question with money woes threatening.

Instead , I have the powerful memory of my parents struggling out into the snow to cut enough wood to get us through. Our German Shepard/Huskie mix dog came along, too, jumping through the deep snow. They returned with a load of wood from an unidentified tree that burned like coal, saving us until we could get back into the woods to cut some more. It turned out the be Ironwood, the only kind of wood that is so dense it sinks in water. It also turned out to be the only Ironwood tree in our woods.

As I look back now I realize the quiet struggles of my parents. My father was a teacher and my mother just started her career as a community worker. They struggled with simple things like paying the mortgage and giving us a good Christmas. When I was little they started a handcrafted broom business out of our basement. Feast or famine best describes the endeavor in the most literal of ways. A loaf of bread is never just a loaf a bread when it is all you have.

The best present I ever received was a Fisher Price Little People castle. The good kind with a pink dragon in a cave, a secret room under the stairs and a trap door in the tower. We didn't expect much as kids, but that Christmas morning exceeded anything I could have imagined. I learned later that my parents had no money that year. They bundled up some brooms and took them into a local store. The owners knew my parents and could see the struggles we were enduring in their eyes. They traded brooms for gifts. The best ever.

My boots felt stiff and good this morning. The harsh wind numbed my legs and cheeks. Snow flakes landed in my eyelashes without melting. With the bad comes the good, it just ends up being a matter of separating the two.

Jet