This is How Winter Unfolds

Water for coffee is boiling on the stove and the early morning outside my kitchen window is cold and dark. Hardly any traffic on the roads, just a few scattered cars crawling along the slick pavement, their headlights shimmering on sheets of ice. My palms hover near the burner glowing orange beneath the pan on the stovetop, the radiating heat warming my hands while the water simmers and begins to roll, little bubbles blinking against the stainless steel and rising to the surface like miniature shooting stars.

This is how winter unfolds.

Distant navy blue mountains veined with white snow slowly brighten as slivers of light slip through the sparse morning fog, break through the heavy clouds and trickle over the far-off peaks. Pools of pink sunlight spilling all along the mountain range. In darkness like this, even the slightest ray of light makes all the difference.

In the pink-grey morning, my mother stands outside in knee-high snow and feeds the birds. Her white coat blending into the pale winter sky and the Cherry Blossom branches wrapped in frost. Black ravens and Ringneck doves waiting on the fence. Chickadees and finches swooping down to the trees, their tiny wings fluttering all around my mother’s hands. Has it really been a year since her crooked spine kept her confined to her bed? It has been a year. She is fully recovered from her back surgery. No more inching through her days leaning on a cane, walking in slow motion, gripping my arm to steady herself. No more of that. Now, she stands upright among flocks of birds floating down to the frozen branches above her.

This is how winter unfolds.

The smell of fireplaces in the afternoons as chimney smoke drifts through the neighborhood streets. Ice gleaming in the frozen gutters.

On a sidewalk next to a church, a little boy squeals and laughs as his father scoops him up and sets him on his shoulders to spin him around and around in circles.

It feels like we’re dreaming.

This is what the little boy says while his dad spins and spins. His small blue winter coat zipped all the way to his chin. His father’s gloveless hands—red and dry from the cold, from the wind—holding him steady on his shoulders, clutching his dark winter boots. The sun already starting to set in the late afternoon sky. Dark grey clouds edged in pale yellow.

We’re in a dream, dad.

They spin and spin.

This is how winter unfolds.

Ghostly blue Christmas lights glowing against snowy rooftops. The moon and stars buried under heavy clouds.

The night after Christmas, my fourteen-year-old dog has a stroke. It happens fast. She is walking near a pile of opened presents when her legs give out. She takes a few wobbly steps and then falls to the ground. She hears my voice say her name, tries to stand but her legs are limp and lifeless. My mother calls the vet while I cover my dog in a blanket. I hold her face in my hands and watch her dark brown eyes twitch back and forth nonstop. I rest her head against my leg and pat her on the back.

She was a puppy when we found her abandoned in the prairies fourteen years ago. It was winter then, and someone had dumped her in the empty fields and left her there to fend for herself. She was cold and whimpering when I scooped her up and buttoned her inside my red coat. Frozen rain started to fall. She was shivering against my chest.

Now, she is wrapped in a blanket and still. I hold onto my dog while our tires crunch over the icy roads. We pull into the vet clinic’s parking lot and she lets out a weak whimper.

A dark sky and freezing air. I carry my dying dog through a silent doorway. This is how winter unfolds.

A Christmas tree wrapped in gold lights stands in the corner of the empty clinic. The vet looks at my dog’s erratically twitching eyes, takes her temperature, listens to her heart.

It looks like she had a stroke and a hemorrhage in her brain.

This is what the vet says as she pets my dog’s head.

That’s why her eyes can’t stop twitching. She isn’t going to recover from this. The most humane thing I can do is put her down.

Sometimes, I get so sad that I can’t move.

My dog, still wrapped in her blanket, rests on a metal table in a small room. My hand is pressed on her side. The vet runs her fingertips over my dog’s soft ears.

She says, It’s almost over.

Sometimes, I get so sad that I forget to breathe.

Fluorescent lights shining on the polished white tiles beneath my feet. My hand on my dog’s side. My hand rising and falling in rhythm with her breathing. Years ago, she was a shaking puppy alone in a cold prairie. Her heartbeat is slowing down. My hand is frozen in place.

The vet says, It’s almost over.

And then it is.

I can’t move my hand. I forget to breathe.

Outside, traffic rolls through the starless night. Engines droning and wind sweeping through the streets. The door clicks closed behind me as I step onto the grey cement stairs and walk through the dense air. My legs feel heavy and everything seems far away, like I’m moving in slow motion through a dream.

It feels like we're dreaming.

A dim streetlight shines down on the parking lot pavement. My feet inch across a long stretch of ice gleaming in the pale yellow glow. In darkness like this, even the slightest ray of light makes all the difference. I remember to breathe. I exhale and my breath drifts out from my mouth, floats up into the frosty air and dissolves behind falling snowflakes.

This is winter. And this is how it unfolds.