David
Heiller
Something
was missing that I couldn’t put
my finger on. Α good Christmas had just passed, but something was missing.
Illness and cold weather sure weren’t absent. My
brother-in-law had missed three days of work before driving seven hours to our
house. He arrived sick and exhausted, and had no appetite.
His
daughter ran a 103 degree fever
on Saturday afternoon and had to go to the emergency room. Then Cindy got sick
to her stomach that night. You know what that means.
Mother Nature topped this off with 28 degrees below zero a
few hours later. We felt like prisoners in a holiday hospital.
 |
| Our typical Christmas involves a lot of this, not so for the Christmas of 1993. |
Yes, there had been presents and church and games of 500
and good feelings all around. But something was missing, and I didn’t find it
until Sunday afternoon.
That’s when my sister-in-law Therese and I went skiing.
The temperature rose to nine below zero, the warmest it would get. So we took
off down the snowmobile trail toward
Birch Creek on our cross country skis.
Oh, it was cold at first. We skied downhill, which created
a wind-chill, and every exposed bit of flesh froze. Eyelashes coated with ice.
Beards turned white—mine did, that is. Therese just had a frozen face.
Therese
said she didn’t know how long she could make it. Her shoes were too small, and
she had on her city gloves. I skied on ahead of her. I knew she would soon
forget about the cold, and she did, and so did Ι.
Therese caught up to me at the Methodist cemetery. We
skied together and talked as best we could. Our lips couldn’t move like normal,
yet it was pleasant. I think we
both needed to be out of the sick house. We needed to feel the fresh air, and
burn a few Chrίstmas cookies off our waist
line.
After we
turned around, Therese pulled ahead of me. I tried to keep up, and I couldn’t.
She had me beat by 50 yards by the time we reached the car. That was all right.
I wheezed and coughed all the way home. Therese, who is 11
years younger than me, joked that I should quit smoking. I don’t smoke. But
that was all right too.
Because when I stepped out of
the car, I felt like skiing another two miles. The cold weather seemed like an
invigorating friend, not an icy prison
guard. The household didn’t seem so sick inside either.
I lit a sauna. After the stove
pipe turned cherry red, Cindy and I went in. I washed her back. We
talked about our Christmas. Saunas are good
for that. They are a nice way to
end a hectic holiday.
It was a hot sauna. I ran
outside and rolled in the fresh snow for at least three
seconds. That isn’t bad considering the temperature had dropped a few more
degrees.
(If you think skiing at nine below is cold, try rolling in the snow in nothing but your
birthday suit.)
Looking back, I
see now that two things had been
missing at Christmas.
One: good health. You
can’t take that for granted. This Christmas reminded me of that.
Two: enjoying nature. Sounds like a cliché, but if it
is, it’s a darned good one. Going outside, taking a hike, going skiing,
snowshoeing, snowmobiling, ice fishing, taking a sauna. These go hand in hand
with a Christmas get-together. You don’t realize how important they are until
you are either too cold or too sick, or both, to do them.
Rolling
in the snow is optional.
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