Past and Present

Sometimes in the middle of a seemingly ordinary day the past and the present collide. If you're lucky it makes the day something special, it becomes a memory.

The Present
We had snow today. When I woke up this morning there was some light flurries falling. By the time I left the house it was a bit more intense and the snow had started to accumulate a bit on the van. It continued on much the same way for the rest of the morning, working itself into almost blizzard like conditions in the afternoon before losing steam. We ended up with a nice coating of the white stuff all over the ground. About mid-morning somebody came to tell me I had a phone call. Now I don't too often get phone calls at work, but remember Mike is home alone with Abby, so I figured it was something earth shattering like, where can I find pants for Abby (umm try her dresser). So imagine my surprise when I hear "Hi Mommy" when I get to the phone.

Me: Hi Honey how are you?

Abby: Mommy! It's snowing! It's snowing!

Me: Is that what you called to tell me?

Abby: Yes Mommy! It's snowing! Right outside the window!

And then she was gone. I could still hear her chattering away as she ran to the window to look at the snow. Mike got on the phone for a minute and he told me how excited she was to see the snow when she woke up and how she had insisted to him that she call me and tell me about the snow. So I stood there at work, with a grin on my face and a tear in my eye.

The Past
Yep I got a little misty eyed. I won't deny it. On it's own it was one of those cute childhood moments. The kind that make me wish I could stop time for a while and keep her just as she is right now, but that's not the big story here. You see another lifetime ago when my Dad was still alive he used to work shifts. Whenever we got that first snowfall he would call my Mom just to tell her it was snowing. Just a silly little romantic thing he would do. It's been 20 years since my Dad passed away and I have now lived two thirds of my life without him. The fact of the matter is every year the memories fade a little bit more. None of the important people in my life ever got a chance to meet him, my family obviously excluded. This little piece of him, while technically my Mom's memory is one thing we do hold on to from year to year. Abby has no concept of who her Papa Steve is or was. I don't have a lot of pictures of my Dad and I don't have any up around the house. I'm not exactly sure why I don't. My grandparents had a framed pictue of him and my Aunt that hung on their wall for years after his death. For me it just seemed like it dominated the room while at the same time they certainly didn't encourage much discussion about him. It always felt like the proverbial elephant in the room. Despite all of that, somehow, my three year old daughter managed to forge a bond with the past and give her Mom a pretty sweet gift without ever knowing it.

Since I've been an adult I have tried to carry on my Dad's tradition of calling my Mom for the first snowfall. So while Abby somehow managed to accomplish a family tradition she knew nothing about, I failed miserably. I could say I was swamped at work, I was tired, distracted or any of the other excuses I could come up with. The truth of the matter is I simply dropped the ball and for that I apologize. Sorry Mom!