The Last First Snowfall

The ice cube rattled noisily in the small pool of bourbon in his glass tumbler as he placed it on the small table beside his wooden chair.  He squinted as he peered out his window into his small, neglected backyard.  He had lit a solitary candle and the shadows danced in the room around him.  If the evening news weather report was correct, this would be the night. 

A thousand moments.  A million regrets.

His body looked older than the years lived. His tired arms folded across his chest and then lowered into his lap.  The folds on his skin took on the beautiful pains of his time. His skin was almost gray under his oversized, dark hoodie. Pockets under his eyes belied his true age. 

This night was so much like this night for many decades.  The almost eerie air of stillness and serenity of the season’s first snowfall was unmistakable, and he allowed himself to surrender to self-reflection and thoughts of seasons long since spent. It had been a particularly difficult year for him.  A health scare. Financial uncertainty.  Sleepless nights.  Restless days.

Could he have done things differently? Could he have willed himself to say the right words?  Could he have expressed himself in other non-verbal ways?  What was past was past.

She hadn’t spoken to him for must be 17 years now.  He didn’t even know where she lived anymore, or whether she had gotten married.  Maybe she had become the successful artist she had always dreamed.  He remembered the projects she would bring home from school, the principal urging him to seek placement in a specialized art school.

Maybe he was a grandfather.  He could imagine a grandaughter squealing as she dove off a headboard into a bed of pillows just as her mother had when she was a child, ponytails and all. He could imagine a precious moment pushing her on the swing in the side yard, her barefoot feet pumping and kicking excitedly.  Moments unrealized.

…..

He smiled slightly and pressed himself closer to the window pane.  He could feel the cold of the outside licking the weathered skin on his face.  He could sense now that this would indeed be the night.  The first snowfall of the season and the undeniably magical phenomenon which would play out again, as it had for so many years now.  He took another sip of bourbon.

She had never forgiven him it seemed.  Despite the years he had quietly sat by her mother’s bed.  Despite holding her hand through much of it, bringing her tea, making her comfortable.  Secretly praying.  Secretly sobbing.  It didn’t seem enough to her.  It never seemed enough for her.  And he was to blame.  She made sure to let him know that.  And the guilt weighed on him like a coat made of lead.  There was no fighting, there were no arguments or accusations.  There should have been.  But after her mother passed, she would only look sideways at him and mutter under her breath.  There should have been conversations.  Any words.  Any exchange at all…

….. 

There was no scientific way to describe the event that would soon unfold.  He had given up trying to explain it or rationalize it to himself.  He had eventually rejected the theory that he had gone mad or was simply imagining things.  He had given up trying to describe it to others or document it.  And he reluctantly realized that he needed this.  This first snowfall of the season.

Their marriage never completely survived after that horrifying summer.  They stayed together but the tender touches, the smiles, the gentle words slowly faded.  He loved her, and he believed that she still loved him.  But the loss of a youngest child at that age is unbearable.  The tragic nature of the loss.  So sudden.  So permanent.  So unexpected.  For her, it seemed too much to ever recover from.  For their family.  It seems the cracks in the relationship with his eldest daughter had started then.  And maybe she blamed him for the accident too. And maybe everything that went wrong was his fault all along.  In his grief, he could not summon the words or the emotions to the surface.  The pain transformed into distance.  The doors of his soul seemed to close slowly as the days and years dragged on.

….

He believed he could always hear the first flake of snow descend in the cold winter air and tonight was no different.  His heart, even after a worn life and a slow and methodical sclerosing, seemed to beat at a faster rhythm tonight.  His pupils grew.  He pressed himself even closer to the glass, his breath slightly fogging his view.

As the snow bravely and determinedly floated down to earth and started to collect on the ground he could sense that it was about to happen.  Every time was different, but still the same.  His wonder never ceased through the years, and his girls, when they were still here, never really shared in his wonder.  Indeed they could not see what he saw.  Could not feel what he felt.

It always happened as if in slow-motion at first.  A shadow flashed along the ground.  Movement in the bushes. Time stopped.  And then she emerged, cautiously and slowly.  Looking around slowly at first and then advancing into the open.  

His heart pounded and he quickly stood up.  He smiled.  He laughed quietly.  He knew that it would inexplicably happen, but he was nonetheless overjoyed every year.  And maybe this year more than most.  Maybe she knew that.  She must have known that as she circled in his yard, leaping, tumbling, rolling and frollicking in the fresh powdery snow.  Criss-crossing the yard making tracks in the fresh snow.  Disappearing under the bushes then reappearing on the opposite side of the hedge.  Given her soft white fur, it was sometimes difficult to see where her body ended and the snowy earth started.  She would stop momentarily and gaze up at the window, acknowledging his presence.  Inviting him.  Playing.

He was too young to remember where she came from, but the bunny was no doubt a gift from the universe.  He would spend hours chasing, holding, playing with his pet.  She had seemed to rescue him when he needed it most.  A lonely boy ridiculed by his peers, often ignored by his parents.  Overlooked in crowded spaces.  He spent too much time alone isolated in his room left to his own negative thoughts and sentiments about his worth.  But then she came.  The two were inseparable.

His parents were reluctant at first to allow the companion but eventually conceded while they mercifully saw the joy she brought to him.  He was alive.  Happy for the acceptance.  Happy for the friendship.  Happy to be able to take care of another living being who so completely seemed to understand him.  She cuddled even tighter when he was sad.  She pranced and hid from him when the mood was light - as it was most of the time.  People seemed to delight in watching the two play together in the park, no matter how ridiculous the unusual friendship seemed.

As quickly as she entered his life, she also left. But not before imprinting four and a half years of joy and love in the boy’s heart.  He hardly remembered shedding a tear when she was gone, but he often wondered how his life might have been different had she not been a part of his challenging youth.

And as mysteriously as she arrived the first time, she re-entered his life that first winter after she had left.  On the first snowfall of the season.  He assumed it was another rabbit who found its way onto their back steps.  But its spirit.  The way it looked at him.  Her characteristic cocked-head pose with one ear aloft and the other flat down her back. It had to be her.  It was her.

He danced around the candlelit room giggling. Skipping. Twirling.  The candle seemed to whirl together with the two of them, lighting the room with a new glow and spilling light out the window to the snowy yard.  All the while his eyes pooled.  For a moment he was free.  Light.  Resolved.  Forgiven. Burdens removed. And for a fleeting moment, he felt alive.  

And this year, just like every previous snowfall, as quickly as she appeared, she was gone again into the drifting, dancing white curtains of snow. A final smile furtively crossed his face.

He pressed his nose up to the cold pane, his breath again fogging the glass interrupting his view. He hoped for what might be his very last glimpse. Of his bunny. Of his youth.  But she was gone, a fact that he had come to accept after all these years.  Chasing her was futile.

He slowly turned. The room seemed darker again. His smile also extinguished as he blew out the single candle.  His back now turned to the window, he began to wonder, as has been his habit for the last five years or so, if he would be around next year to experience this moment. 

He emptied his bourbon. Sighed. Smiled. Retired upstairs. Slowly. Painfully. Yet optimistically. Hopeful.