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We drove over Cabbage Hill the day after Christmas, our car loaded with the girls and suitcases stuffed with snow gear. And sorrow, the kind that clings to fibers and mist and turns insides out with how different everything feels.
Michael drove, and I held his hand and looked over at him often to see his growing older face and the pain that I held with him but that was his alone. A few days before Christmas, at the age of 94, his white-haired, blessed cackle-laughing Grandpa Sunny died.
When Grandpa passed, so, too, had the last father figure in Michael’s family and the one who filled some of the stretching open hole when Dad died two months shy of Michael’s graduation from high school.
“It’s just my brothers and me,” Michael had said. “We’re the men now.”
Grandpa lived life a steadfast husband and father, a modern-day mountain man, the town pharmacist, a snowmobiler into his 80’s, the coach of many generations.
He would be buried above the high school field that bore his name.
As Michael held the road’s curves, he remembered the 35 years of drives through three states to visit his grandparents. But on this journey, twists and turns were the contours of dread sadness pulling him toward second home and the fear of entering through the log home’s side door, and no Grandpa.
It was early morning and the roads were clear, but fog hung thick outside Pendleton. And then, as Michael remembers, everything cleared. Time suspended.
For suddenly, suddenly the world was etched ice, glistening like a vision from another planet. The prairie landscape was a scene in a snow globe — each branch, each grass blade, each leaf coated, transformed, still.
In all his drives through this terrain in sun, rain, snow, sleet, blizzards, Michael had never beheld a thing like this.
“It was like seeing a lightening bolt in slow motion,” he recalls. “Something that you know will only happen for a moment, and you’re seeing it happen.”
It was something rare in these parts — a hoarfrost. “Hoar” itself an old word that means grayish white or grayed with age, this kind of frost occurs when the air holds a high humidity and physical surfaces have a temperature below the dew point. Water vapor from the surfaces skips dew and moves directly to a frozen state.
So the frost did not just wrap the trees in sparkle. The gnarled trees were sparkle.
In this utter stillness, nothing seemed true.
Michael wondered what would happen if he stopped the car. Was the blinding bright of crackled white real? If he reached to touch it, would it return to the everyday of soft leaf and delicate blade?
Lying in bed talking with me on what would have been his father’s 75th birthday, Michael recalled the frost of life sorrowfully new.
“That day, it was like emotionally, everything had changed,” he said. “Something I’d never seen before had transformed every thing into something scary beautiful.”
I am eyes filled with tears grateful for my husband who shared his remembrances of that day’s frost and the losses that crystallized every detail in his mind.
Every Monday, Amber Haines of The Runamuck, leads an exploration of voice in writing, in which we use concrete words to express the abstract. Please visit Amber’s to read her glorious writing and that of other writers and friends who link up there. This week’s piece began with the prompt “THE FROST.”
Also linking up with Imperfect Prose at Emily Wierenga’s place.
** Click here for photo credit. **
Connecting through the power of stories written, spoken and lived
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Loved it, thanks!
Thanks for commenting, Julia, and for letting me know of the original post “issue.”
Beautiful thoughts written beautifully, Ashley.
I like the snow globe analogy, especially. When someone close, leaves this world, there is a palpable absence, almost a vacuum. Which is very much the feeling I get looking at that frozen world inside the globe.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks, Uncle Don. Mike spoke about the snow globe, and that idea absolutely resonated with me too. The stillness, the quiet, the frozen world, as you said. Thanks for your encouragement…it means so much.
Beautiful how you wove the meaning and the images together. And you reminded me of when I lived in a climate where I saw this occur. It’s pretty boring in the desert, compared with that beauty.
Thanks your for your comment and your visit. The desert has its own beauty, to be sure, but I think I know what you mean — there is something so powerful about seeing life in such stark and dramatic contrast.
Hi sweet Ashley
I cannot help but wonder if the hoar frost was perhaps a gift from our Pappa showing your Hubbie that his Heavenly Father sees His pain and understands his loss, reminding him that his Pappa God will always be there for him!
Lots of love to you both.
Mia
Thank you, Mia. I absolutely believe the hoar frost was God’s gift to my husband that day. It’s incredible to me how much God desires to reveal to us and how often he uses the world he’s created to speak to the hearts of those he’s made. He is always here for us. Time stopped, broken heart held. Here.
This was so elegantly and compassionately done – etched ice – scary beautiful – LOVE IT! It was such a picture of those moments of breathtaking grace when God shows up in unexpected places and transforms things.
I always enjoy coming here… And I’ve made up time on last week’s homework :-)
Thank you, Tanya. I’m blessed by your presence here and by your words. Yes — breathtaking grace in unexpected places, transforming the seemingly un-transformable. That’s our God, for sure.
Ashley- This is beautiful. So full. I read it a couple of times, just to capture all you are saying. Thank you for sharing (and also thank you for your encouragement last week in my first abstract post…haven’t done it yet this week.)
Thanks so much, Melanie. I felt like there was so much I longed to say here. My husband’s retelling of this shared — and yet individual experience — moved me deeply.
I have noticed.. when I’ve lost a loved one, there is the most spectacular natural phenomenon on display.. a rainbow, a sunset.. not just the usual sort, but the “over the top are you seeing what I’m seeing” sort. I’ve always felt that they are a sign.. Your husband sounds like an incredibly sensitive man. xx
Smidge, I think you are so right. I’ve heard this from many people about their losses — about those “over the top” revelations of God’s presence. I absolutely believe they are signs and am so grateful for the ways my husband was able to take the natural phenomenon of that day directly to the places of his heart. He is a gem.
I so appreciate the unique description here of sorrow – from Michael’s perspective, and still, in your unique lyrical voice. This – “And sorrow, the kind that clings to fibers and mist and turns insides out with how different everything feels” – is profound, and so true, and you weave it in perfectly with the hoar frost and Michael’s recollection of that day. He captured it well – the “scary beautiful” – and I never thought of it like that before, but so much of life, particularly the sorrows and even many experiences of God, are just this. Scary beautiful. I remember a day or two after my Dad died, sitting out on a dock on a lake – my Mom and two close friends and I – singing “It is well with my soul,” and a clap of thunder from nowhere… and, no joke, clouds forming up high in the shape of a cross. And this, too, was scary beautiful. Like God. Thanks, again, friend, for sharing your refreshing gift of art.
Oh my gosh, Amber. Unbelievable….what an amazing story. Thank you for sharing that sacred moment. Truly, that is such a gift to me.
When I think of that scary beautiful, I think of Aslan in “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.” There is a passage where one of the children asks Mr. Beaver if Aslan is safe, and the beaver says, “Safe, no, child. But he is good.”
Beautiful reflections.Thanks brother for sharing your heart and sis your beautiful words. And that photo, wow!
HAD DIFFICULTIES WITH MY FIRST POSTING TODAY, SO I’VE DELETED IT, BUT WANTED TO INCLUDE THESE DEAR COMMENTS FROM DEAR ONES…
From Spree (cooking-spree.com):
“Exquisite, Ashley, by every standard, in every way possible. Simply that.
(And Mike, my heart, love, and sorrow! You are such a good, Good man! And Sonny, so proud.)”
From Auntie Claudia:
“Tears flowing – some sad and some happy. I love you and Mike!”
From wynnegraceappears (wynnegraceapears.wordpress.com):
“Ashley, though this is tender and fragile, this story of loss, it is beautiful in your telling. I am chilled as if I were there with you. This transformative beauty that gripped the earth and hearts on this day. Thank you both for sharing your beautiful.”
From Brandee:
“So thankful to serve, along with you, a God of wonder.”
Mama Spree, Grandpa Sunny was so proud of Mike, I know. Consistency, loyalty, integrity, commitment…these things they most certainly have in common.
Dear Auntie, thank you for sharing your heart.
Elizabeth, thank you for sharing in stories with me. Such power in them. To stop and look, as you spoke of on your blog, is to see — really see the transformative beauty of a moment. Mike and I were both changed in this.
Me too, Brandee. Me too.
I am so grateful to Mike for sharing his heart, as you said, Sis. And that photo — I know, isn’t it something? I did not capture a photo of that day, but that one I found online (the link is at the bottom of the post) seemed to capture it so well.
How very special and beautiful, Ashley. Something happened with the last “Draw Near” so I’ll go to your site. I very much love your
writing. It brings me deep sighs in my being. You visit my “soul bones” with words of my own travels….My gratitude and love be yours….and I thank you, it means so much… Much love, Kelly
Thank you, Kelly. Your words mean so much to me. To be able to touch another with our words, in all the ways each of us do each day, is such a privilege, true gift.
Beautiful photo & powerful writing friend! God’s presence was there in the beauty of His frosty creation at such a sad time in your lives…
Yes, just that. To know his presence in the midst of our pain. To see something like that is to receive a reminder that he sees us and wants us to see him.
Beautifully told. A profoundly sad experience for Mike.The memories of him will always be now, not fade in time. We cherish, love and hold warmly in our hearts the ones that loved us, shaped and influenced our lives. Much love to you and Mikey.
Thank you, Papa. Amazing how telling the story means I won’t ever forget that moment either. Love you.
Beautiful Ashley! Always gorgeous, thank you for your beautiful work!
Thank you for your kind words, Shira!
oh girl. there is something so sacred and beautiful about this post. it shines like the hoar frost… the kind we get around here too, and i know… it transforms. a holy kind of heaven on earth. thank you for sharing this bittersweet post, friend. so much love to you.
Emily, it IS a holy kind of heaven on earth. Thank you so much for your words, friend. They mean so much.