The smell of pancakes greeted the two little ones whose loud feet always made a joyous noise on the way down into the kitchen for another "family day" as they would call it. They didn't have much land, probably about an acre, two dairy cows, a chicken coop with a dozen or so hens and a small crop of soybeans aside from the vegetable garden they kept.
He had dug a path through the snow to the barn, having moved the hens there until the temperature rose, making sure the new laying area was closest to the fire that he built. He regularly changed the hay from the cow's pens and checked for eggs. While they had no shortage of water, with the pipe for the pump frozen over, they consumed more milk than they normally would have.
Sometimes he would see his daughters following behind like little ducklings to the barn. All bundled up and sweating from the entrapment of their body heat, they would unzip their coats and stretch out their arms to the chickens. Almost by instinct, the animals would flock to the little ones, embracing the mildly damp warmth of the girls.
It was that moment that he now reflected on, having his wife's frail and withered hand in his own. He told stories, always about the girls, always about the farm. But most came back to that winter, snowed in with two girls and a soon to be third. It was like something of magic, he thought. For a few days, cold and bitter as the weather was, they were untouchable, off and alone in space and time, existing together. Neither of them even remember the girls fighting.
Each tear was a different memory. He recalled the way his daughters cried at the way it felt when their cold hands and feet began to warm up again, how he put their tiny feet and hands up against his stomach, how he offered the quiet shushing, the stroking of their hair, how they smelled so much like their mother.
He recalled the night he and his wife stayed up later than they should have, dancing to music that was a combination of a hummed melody by one, and the lyrics added by the other. He remembered the way her face glowed in the light of the candles and wood stove, the warmth of the baby inside of her up against his own stomach, the religious ecstasy when she grabbed his hand and brought to her lips and kept it there for eternity. The way the breath left her nostrils and fell on his fingers.
And now to see her there, slowly fading by nothing but her own finitude. They were grounded in reality. They knew and planned long ago. Death was always an agreed upon certainty. But that doesn't make the loss any easier. It makes it healthier, it makes one accept it and embrace its coming as something to look at as a possible gain in a certain regard. But the hole created by that loss remains all the same. It doesn't stop the wound.
inspired by Up Notes by Mark Orton
