Melting Ice

“Wahoo!!!” they yell as they race to the cul de sac where the snowplow’s giant gift awaits. The snow goes flying as the kids scramble up the hill to release some pent up energy after a long day of school. I kind of wish I could join in.

Watching from the dining room window, I see a King and Queens of the Mountain, clamoring for position on a surprisingly warm January day. Like my sisters and I played so many years ago, pushing each other off giant mounds of wood chips or top soil or snow, whatever my father’s delight for the day.

On today’s mountain, I can see a reflection of those same smiling faces, but I am too far away to hear the yips of delight and the screams of the three youngsters at play. They aren’t really my own children, but they grow in my heart and on this pile of dirty snow. They are like tender shoots of new connections, forged by mashed potatoes and macaroni and the earth’s most giant muddy sand box.

The oldest girl is a quieter version of my pushy daughter, but comes out of her shell with her siblings when she thinks no eyes can see. Her brother frolics like MY son, a few months different in age and not so much in attitude. And the youngest girl, a sprite from the sea who is just a half stroke behind, races up the hill on the heels of her siblings.

All around them, soggy green grass struggles to right itself after the weight of the snow and its melting. The worst kind of dingy, trapped between the beauty of freshly-fallen flakes and the electric green of spring. But the kids don’t mind. They make snow-balls striped with brown and hurl them and each other around the hill.

And as most afternoons of play on mountains of snow end, an injury ceases the game. A trip on the snow pile and a face plant in the muddy ice pushes the eldest into role of mother as she shuttles her youngest sister the few driveways back home.

And I see in her the tenderness of my own daughter in times of need. The stubbornness and bravado of a first grade girl melts like the snow when a sibling cries. And the dull green grass they trample on their way back home echoes the promise of spring. For them and for their mommies. Spring will erase the giant snow mountain and the cold in our hearts, and it will be a springboard as these tender shoots continue to grow.