Shoveling with Dad

We joked about the lack of snow for most of January, one way to keep our spirits up.  

At least we’re not out there shoveling in this cold, we’d say.  Could always be worse. 

Sometimes we’d raise our coffee mugs and toast: Survived another week! Almost spring! 

We were looking for any small thing to keep us buoyant.  We noted that the days were getting longer, the sun stronger.  Soon, we told ourselves, we’ll be complaining of the heat. 

But most times, he’d have none of that.  He’d stand at the front window, click his tongue, and shake his head at the rectangles of lawn, frosted and stiff. 

It’s pretty, the way it sparkles, don’t you think? We’d try to keep our voices even. Strain to hide the pleading.  Sneak looks at the set of his mouth, the lines of his brow. It’s all about the power of positive thinking, we’d tell ourselves.   

Remember ’78? How we were stuck inside for weeks? Thought we’d never see green again? Then skied until April vacation? Wrapped our jackets around waists?  

We chuckled. Lost ourselves in memories of calf muscles trembling through white glue and mud, ski tips shuddering on ice like glass, and us flying over rocks, dirt, bales of hay, breathless, laughing over who’d be first in line for that next rope tow trip up.   

We can’t stop ourselves and know it’s too much even as we say it: You’ll be out walking again in no time. 

Yeah, he says. Right. Then that laugh, a knife, punishment for forgetting for seconds his biweekly appointments with the chiropractor, cardiologist, lung guy.  Half his days are spent on medical visits or picking up prescriptions, have we forgotten that? 

Finally, a few weeks later, the snow came. 

You’re there shoveling the walk, and he’s calling from the glass back door, asking how it’s going. You remind him if he comes out to be careful because all he needs is that one fall and life will never be the same again. 

Yes. I know, he says.  There’s no reprimand, no sarcasm, no anger in his tone.   

Minutes later he’s on the top step, wool ski hat shoved down to his ears. He announces he wants to supervise as you dig out his car.  Each step he takes on the frozen stairs, covered with a Sahara Desert’s worth of sand, lasts an hour, it seems. You’ve got him in your peripheral vision. You’re hip-deep now, working the shovel around the exhaust pipe.  

He walks your way. Good job kid, he says.  You laugh, keep it light. Think about reminding him -- shrug it away though -- how back then, he'd be on your tail to hurry up so the two of you could get some runs in before the rest of the world showed up, and the slopes got too packed.  

The car chirps. He opens the driver’s door and climbs in. Seconds later, the engine growls, then he’s out again.

He’s snowbrush-armed, and clearing a path, a foot of powder from the driver’s side hood. He cleans a small circle on the windshield, a porthole, just enough for him to see only what’s directly in his way. Then he shuffles toward the trunk, where you still labor to free that one back wheel, which is locked in a bank of ice.  

He inspects your work. Says you’ve done plenty for now though you protest that the car might stick. He waves away your words and tells you to watch how the pros do it. 

He climbs back into the front seat and presses the gas, three, four, six times.  The car rocks now. The back wheels spin. When they catch, he pulls into the road then parks against a snow bank to the side. 

You move to the next car, and start freeing that, watching him all the while from the corner of your eye. You like how the tip of his ski hat bobs with each move of his arm. 

He’s still in the road, cleaning the roof, the trunk, the hood, every window until the car is shiny new, then chatting with a neighbor, then another neighbor, then telling you to get a move on because he’s almost ready to drive that next car out.  

Back in the rope tow days, before we graduated to T-bars then chairlifts.