To Winter in Wisconsin

The first winter there, I was numb from grief and didn’t notice the cold.

The second winter there, the baby was born. In January. During a snowstorm. The nurses told me that lots of babies are born during storms, something to do with a change in air pressure. Out the hospital window, I watch the storm. I am in labor for two days. The storm never stops.

Two days later, they sent us home. I thought they were insane. Surely, you cannot take a baby outside in this weather?!? Look it up in those fancy medical books you have. Or the law books. It’s 20 below out there. The baby is 8 ½ pounds. Anyone can see…

But the nurses were chipper as they helped us gather everything and Keith brought the car around to the sliding glass door, the car well heated and the windshield clear.

I sat with the baby by the big picture window for three months and watched the winter; it was one of the coldest and snowiest ever (for me, not for Madison). Keith would shovel snow every morning and every night. On the radio, the forecaster would use words like “dangerously cold.” 

Honestly, other than the high gas bill and some cabin fever, winter that year didn’t feel much worse because I just didn’t go out in it. Twenty above or 20 below made little difference because in my living room it was 68 and I had coffee.

But I watched, in disbelief, as the children walked passed my window on their way to school. I knew they had five more blocks to go. They were little, kindergarteners and first graders following behind their older brothers and sisters, trying to keep their backpacks on over their bulky coats. No matter what they had on, they looked cold. I was holding this baby, 32 days old, and wondering how I will get the nerve to let him walk to school in the cold and the dark in just five years. 

The kids shouted to each other, playing on their way, throwing snowballs, never thinking of warmer climates, of Januaries without snow, of different winters.