They say our icy weather will not be as bad as last time.  Even so, when I woke up early to the sounds of ice pelting my rooftop, I could not shake off memories of last year’s storm.  So I got out of bed to let my sleep-robbing thoughts out on paper.  Maybe they’ll stop whining.

I tell myself there is nothing to fear, but something is bothering me.  What is it?  I know we weathered last year’s ice storm all right.  Compared to many in the neighborhood, our losses were minor – no heat and power for three days and one old Elm tree gone forever. 

But, as I remember this, I wonder whether the brevity of our suffering was a rare sort of grace given to those in mourning. 

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Two days before the storm hit, we had laid to rest my mother’s body.  And because the ice storm followed mom’s death so closely, I fear I may forever associate them together.

Will I always wake up at night when I hear ice hitting the rooftop? 

Will I always recall that moment of fancy–while living in our dark and cold home during last year’s storm– when I wondered whether slinging around ice was mom’s way of venting anger at death from the grave, in the same way she infrequently resorted to slinging around a pot or pan, or slamming a door or drawer to vent her anger at life when she was alive?

As I write this, I realize mom was not an angry person by nature nor was she angry about dying.  No, that fancy had nothing to do with mom’s anger.  It was all my own.   

Today, I release the anger to go back and live with last year’s storm.  And for this new storm, I choose to remember mom’s life, and the way she absolutely loved to look out her window on falling snow.  And so, in honor of her, I stop and look.  And it’s beautiful.  Then I stop and listen.  And it sounds like hundreds of little bugs are crashing into my windshield.