The Good-Bye Blizzard

“Shoot!” I exclaim as my car hits a snowbank on the boulevard. I take stock of the scene around me, two other cars have also hit the boulevard, but thankfully none of us have hit each other. I try to reverse and all I can hear is the squeal of tires spinning on ice. “I’m sorry Gram, I think we’re going to be stuck here for a bit,” I say, flicking on my hazards.

My grandmother gives me an appraising side-eyed look, “I told you we’d be better off staying off the roads today, my girl. I’m okay, I’m okay!” She brushes my hand away from where I’ve been checking her over for injuries. Just my luck, getting into a car accident with my 80-year-old grandmother in the car. My heart is still thundering in my chest, I am starting to sweat in my winter coat. “Are you okay?” She asks as she looks me over again.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I reply, letting out a whoosh of air as I sigh. We are on our way to visit my mother in the hospital. Correction, we were on our way, and now we are stuck in the curb lane of Henderson Highway in the middle of what’s now being billeted on the radio as ‘The Snow Storm of the Decade’ in the geographic center of the North American continent. I pull out my phone to call a towing service and after about five minutes on hold, I’m told we’ll be waiting at least two hours. Not surprisingly, this is Winnipeg after all and for some reason, people seem to feel the need to hit the roads at the worst time. I’d normally be home during a storm this bad, so would my grandma, but the hospital had implied that we’d better come today. 

All is quiet in my car for several minutes, both of us staring blankly out of our respective windows. It’s dark, darker than usual, and the visibility is very low. Facing southeast on this stretch I can normally see the sign for the grocery store, up and on the left about one hundred yards from where we are. Today I can only see the car in the snowbank in front of me, the car in the snowbank behind me, and the left median two lanes over which holds a sad-looking sapling weathering its first winter. My head swivels to look at my grandma, “I’m worried about mum,” I say, biting back the tears that have been threatening me for what seems like an eternity. Truthfully, my mother has only been in the hospital for two weeks. 

Two weeks ago the venous angioma in my mother’s brain burst, we’ve known she’s had it for over a decade and it has never posed a problem. Two weeks ago we rushed her to the hospital, she received emergency brain surgery and she hasn’t woken up since. Two weeks ago I thought I’d be able to speak with my mother for years to come until the doctors informed us that she was in a coma after the surgery with an unclear outcome. Last week they took out the breathing tube and she was breathing on her own, though still unconscious and unresponsive. Today the nurses called the family in and in my experience, it doesn’t usually mean anything good. 

“I’m worried too, but we have to keep hoping. I refuse to have another child pass before me,” my grandma sighs, she too is fighting back the urge to let the tears flow, I can tell. I never met my Uncle Chris, he passed away four years before I was born at the tender age of 17 and my grandmother has understandably never gotten over it. Part of the reason is likely the mystery that shrouds his death, the lack of closure that comes from knowing exactly what took the person you love away from you. All we know is he was alive one day, missing the next day, and three months later his body turned up in the Red River near the locks in the spring thaw. No, I don’t suppose you come back from that sort of loss with any ease. 

My phone whistles at me and I take a look, it’s a text from my brother - he’s made it to the hospital, mum is still alive but the doctors have informed him she’s likely not going to make it through the night. “Gram, it’s from Evan. It doesn’t look good.” She grabs my hand and squeezes it. “What if we don’t make it in time?” I start to panic, my breaths coming in quick short bursts, grandma squeezes harder. “We have no control over this, my girl, she’ll either wait for us or she won’t,” I look her in the eye as she says this and realize that the tears have overcome us both. It seems to me that we are both realizing that we always thought we’d be saying good-bye to each other before I’d have to say it to my mum for the last time. 

“I hope she knows I regret many of the things that I said, did or didn’t do over the years,” my grandma says quietly as we both begin to recover our composure. 

I know a little of what she refers to, having always been her confidante from the time I was a teenager, as well as sharing a close relationship with my mother. I’ve often felt a little ‘monkey-in-the-middle’ with both of them. “I think she does, I know she wished she could hear you say it. Let’s keep our fingers crossed the tow truck gets us out of this snowbank sooner than later so you can tell her.” I drum my fingers on the steering wheel, cars are still moving past us slowly in the lanes to the left, the snow hasn’t let up yet. My heart feels like it has lodged itself somewhere between my lungs and my vocal cords, my throat feels like long thick ropes are twisting in it. At this moment I’m almost grateful I’ve hit the snowbank, I’m not sure I could keep driving in my current state. 

“You’re lucky, you know,” starts Grandma, “She raised you differently than I raised her. Helps that she grew up in a world where the rules were changing. Where I have many things left unsaid between myself and my parents, myself and your mother - you and she don’t have that. You’ve had an open relationship with her, I’m grateful to her for that because she also gave us that sort of relationship.” It’s true, I know, the longest I’ve ever gone without talking to my mum is the last two weeks. My mum always encouraged me to talk to her about anything, and she’s even taken in stride my many ‘overshare’ moments.

“I guess you’re right, I’ve never considered that our relationship is the way it is because of her. But yeah, you are right - she gave us this in some part.” I look at grandma, “Hey, remember when she was ready to strangle the principal of my middle school for following me on my lunch breaks?”

Grandma laughs through her tears and it sounds less like laughing than choking, “Yes, I do remember that. He was trying to catch you smoking cigarettes. Messed with the wrong kid, for sure, I had to talk her out of some of the revenge ideas she was cooking up. She even threatened to slash his tires,” I let out a whoop and a cough at this as I laugh through my own tears, “I told her not to, it’s never worth it in the end, revenge.” Grandma finishes. 

We spend the next forty-five minutes reminiscing over incidents of family hilarity. It’s clear that we are both feeling the push and pull of being stranded in a situation that bears you little control. Another hour of waiting seems likely by the looks of the blizzard around us, another hour of waiting also seems excruciating. Suddenly we see the unmistakable orange lights of a tow truck pulling up behind us and my heart leaps into my throat once again, only now tinged with hope and relief. 

As I open my car door to greet the tow truck driver I turn to Grandma, “Stay there, I’ll come around and help you out.” She nods agreement and I make my way over to her side of the car, it’s not easy going in the snow that’s fallen in the hour since we’ve been stuck. “Ladies, go ahead and hop in the cab, I’ll get this sorted and we’ll be on our way shortly.” The kindly man helps us into the passenger side of the truck and goes about his business getting my car hooked up to the winch. He finishes and joins us in the truck, I give him directions to my house as it’s very close to the hospital and gives us the best chance of seeing my mum as soon as possible. 

We make our way slowly down Henderson Highway, the blizzard still pummeling the city, and we see dozens of other vehicles stranded along the road as we go. I know I still look fraught, and my grandmother does too as we hold each other’s hand tightly, sending up silent prayers together. I can tell she is as grateful as I am that the truck driver is not a chatty man. As we near the heart of the city I get another urgent text message from my brother wondering where we are, I quickly type out a reply letting him know we are no longer stuck and we’ll be there as soon as we can. I hit send as we cross Hespeler Avenue and as my gaze falls on the Elmwood Cemetery up ahead, everything seems to slow down. I blink several times to clear my eyes as I can’t quite process what I think I see.

Grandma sees it too, I can tell, her body going slightly rigid next to mine as my eyes finish refocusing. A spiral of snow is spinning under the archway of the cemetery, there appears to be a light glowing at the center of it. It’s dazzling and confusing at the same time, two forms start to build from the light flowing out of the center of the spiral. “Miriam!” gasps my grandma and I know she’s right as she says it, I too am seeing the indisputable image of my great-grandmother. Time seems to slow even further as we pass the cemetery in the tow truck. The blood drains from my face as I watch the spectre of my great-grandmother, she is holding out her hand and the second form begins to come into focus - it’s my mum. 

I let out a sob and put my arm around my grandma and as I embrace her I see my mum turn toward us as she holds great-grandma Miriam’s hand. My breath catches in my chest as the image of my mother and great-grandmother begin to blur into the spiral of snow once again, slowly fading out of view. I am filled with sorrow, gratitude and warmth as I distinctly hear my mother’s voice say, “Good-bye, I love you.” My phone pings again, I look down through my tears and shock and see only “She’s gone,” to which I reply, “I know.”