Remembering Mum

I got up early this morning to sit outside and have a cup of tea with my mum before the household woke up. It’s been seven years today since she passed and I thought about the things I could tell her from just these past seven days...

I could tell her that six inches of snow fell leaving us with an unexpected winter wonderland. That her granddaughters carved up the street outside our house with cookie trays and pool floats until word got out that it was the best sledding hill in the hood. That the neighbors brought kayaks and snowboards and that soon her daughter was running a ski slope serving mac ‘n cheese and wine. That for two full days the slopes were open and smiles were broad.

I could tell her that not all were as fortunate as we were and that power outages and water shortages left families struggling to stay warm. How eventually our water was cut, our stores and schools remained closed, and that trees started falling down under the weight of the snow-turned-ice. I could tell her how neighbors and friends reached out to share what they had and help where they could.

I could tell her how we boiled snow for drinking water and got creative with cooking from the contents of our pantry. How we played board games and built igloos to stay warm and keep spirits high. How we felt blessed to have family and a community to carry us through these crazy times.

I could tell her all this, but this morning as I sipped my steaming cup of boiled-snow tea, I knew she’d been with us all along.