hope in a time of snowball soup

reflections on the cold, grief, and little critter books

Recently my family left me at home alone and I scrolled my phone like a mindless monkey. After a while I felt chilled. I left my phone long enough to fill the bathtub with warm water and epsom salts. Maybe the water would take the chill away. Maybe the salts would soothe my creaking and aching. I slipped in and wouldn’t you know it? The water wasn’t warm enough. I endured it for a while and finally I drained the tub to ankle depth and refilled it, practically peeling off layers of epidermis as it splashed up around my thighs. I would not be cold this time.

Later, I am sitting in a sun spot on my couch. I just had a bell pepper stuffed with tuna and cheese melted on top. It was good, but not warm enough. The sky is clear and the trees are more at loss than they are colored and I am cold. To the bone.

Blaise is the patron saint of sore throats and coughing, and Sebaldus of Nuremberg is the patron of cold weather. But who is the patron saint of warmth in the chill? 

There’s little that makes me feel warm these days. A small cut on my left hand annoys me and I take my husband’s lighter and put the flame dangerously near the wound. Maybe cauterizing this would feel…better? I pull the flame away. I don’t want my hand to be healed, I want to feel warm.

We’re not quite at Advent and I can already feel the weight of what I suppose is anticipation. Christ was born–later. I have him now, but it feels like I’m still waiting for him. This thought makes me feel foggy. Often when my body breaks down along with my mind, my therapist reminds me to be mindful of anniversaries. The body keeps the score and mine is worse than Miss Piggy reminding Kermit of their first date. Let me explain…

a sick Sam sprawls, unbothered, asleep on the couch

I can still smell the nostalgia of growing up and having a table laid with steaming mashed potatoes, cornbread dressing, cranberry apple casserole, and pumpkin pie. I can see my favorite cousin lounging on the couch, beckoning me to join him where we can play cards until we’re asked to set the table. I can see my aunt, thin as a whisper, in her tiny leather shoes, picking at the olive tray, sampling my mom’s dishes before they are whisked out to the dining room. It all seems to be in vignette and sepia tone. It happened, but it will never happen again. None of the people in that room will ever be together again. Mainly, because two of them are dead.

I have had wonderful Thanksgivings since with dear friends, but it doesn’t alleviate the ache of missing those who have their fingerprints all over my memories. And funny, no matter how many Friendsgivings I attend, I still ache for the Thanksgiving of my childhood.

The more I think about it, the more the cold makes sense. Especially right now. And it’s not just the cold. I have been terribly forgetful. I have missed calls, and dropped the ball on get togethers. The midday crash has become my normal. I’m menu planning and making Christmas lists and budgeting for our current income status and parenting a high needs child and missing my mother. 

God, I miss my mom. 

There is no comfort quite like having a best friend who is also your mother. There is no grief like losing a best friend who is also your mother. November of 2016 my mother helped prepare Thanksgiving supper. By the first days of January 2017, she would be gone. Lord, have mercy on the anniversaries. 

The cold has made its way from the inside out.

…

Bedtime slips up on me. Sam has watched ‘Muppet Treasure Island’ while I have taken yet another bath. David swaps with me while I watch the end of the movie with Sam and he takes one too. We’re both cold. Sam decides on one last game to play and then David sends him to my lap with ice chips and the promise of milk in the morning.

Look mama! Big ice chips!
How can he stand it?

His little warm hand throws the slippery chips into his mouth and he bounds into my lap. We’re on a rotation of the same books, but we always end with “Snowball Soup” by Mercer Mayer. It’s a my-first-reader so Sam knows the words by heart:

It’s lunchtime. What does a snowman eat? Snowball soup! We make snowball soup. We give the snowman a spoon. Eat up snowman! We go inside for lunch. We have soup for lunch too. Yum yum, thank you mom!

How did I suddenly become the mom? 

Sam nuzzles up against me and asks me to tell him a story featuring his stuffed wolf. I take the stuffy and prance him across our legs that we have covered in a green blanket my mom got for me more than 20 years ago. I tell him a story about a wolf who makes friends with a red fox one winter when he was cold and needed a friend. The fox shares food with the wolf and the wolf teaches the fox to howl at the moon and they both cuddle together at night to keep warm from the snow. I tuck Sam in bed and sit back down in the rocking chair. He has requested my presence until he’s too sleepy to care anymore. I rock and meditate on these words:

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

Image by Scott Erickson, featured in his book “Honest Advent”

A thrill of hope.

How does a virgin give birth to deity? How do I call a boy who does not share my blood, son? How do I move from daughter to mother with little to no roadmap? How do I figure out how to warm up?

Miracles and mysteries. And layers. And nose kisses from a small boy. And asking for prayer from the patron saint of heating pads. And waiting. Lots of waiting.

Always,
Emily

real life moment: this was written in part by sitting in the sun with a heating pad on my lap and in part next to a snoring spouse who will, no doubt, sleep through the second coming.