The mother of all snowflakes lands on my tongue.

            It’s cold joy.

            Grandpa waves hello from the kitchen window that overlooks the driveway at Nanny’s house, where I stand, as my sisters run about, snow-dusted-confectionary-sugared, in the fluttery snow.  I wave back to Grandpa, and push my hair away from my face with winter armor of a red, hand-me-down mitten.  I don’t know it today, but one day, Grandpa will be gone, and harsh tears will catch in my throat when I see his gray sweater lying alone on the chair by the window.

            No more waves from Grandpa.

            It’s winter in Darien.  I grab little sister Maria’s fake-fur-trimmed jacket hood, pull her along, and order Barb to follow our older sister Donna.  We run to the hill at the front yard, make snow-angels, our bodies crazily thrashing as we lie in the white snow. 

            I believe that God’s angels in heaven, in the winter sky, look at me.  My arms slide up-and-down to make angel wings.  I pump hard, wish hard to get rid of the defenseless fear that silences me.  I try not to be afraid and pray to Jesus to give me strength, just like Mom does. 

            I try hard to think of good things.  Christmas is almost here. 

            And with that day, Baby Jesus!  Baby Jesus!  Baby Jesus!

            On Christmas Day, I will put Baby Jesus in the crib in our Polish grandparents’ nativity manger, and think how God loved the world so much that he gave us his only Son, and, here, the Baby Jesus goes from my hand to his place of honor in a little wooden shed.

            Above us, as we lie in the snow, the dark vertical stripes of trunks of Great-Uncle Mike’s maple tree are leafless against the soft blue sky.

            As we run down the hill, four sets of angel prints of smothered wings trampled by four girls’ boot marks lay in the snow.

            I run along, place my red-mittened hand on the slate of the stone wall that Grandpa built, as I curve into the driveway.  Grandpa waves to me from the window.  Waving for me to come inside, come in, come in, come in.

            “Don’t you see, sisters?  Grandpa’s telling us to come inside.

            It’s winter in Darien.  I follow the slushy tracks of Donna’s white rubber boots as the four of us girls go inside, to Nanny’s warm, Christmas kitchen.  It is here where the burdens of life are flung out the back door, thrown out as far as can be.  It is here where Christmas is found, in the winter in Darien.  It is here where I feel that God will protect me from enemies.  Maybe Mom feels this way, too.

            In Nanny’s kitchen is where I pump my mind hard, make it push away thoughts – don’t want to think about the butcher knife weapon that wild Mom crazily thrashed at Drunk-Daddy last night, a mad-woman-as-protector, of my sisters and me.

            I don’t know that her defense attacks are over.  

            I don’t know that Mom will divorce Daddy.

            I don’t know it today, well, maybe I do, that my stubborn-self won’t accept change easily as I struggle, fight, cope, in an uncertain life without Daddy.

            Later, I am lost without Daddy. 

            Even with all of his faults, I miss Daddy.

            I pray and hope that God loves me and I hold onto this hope real tight, especially when I feel that no one else loves me.

            Eventually, I begin to believe that there’s not a battle in life that I’m left to fend for myself.  Dear, Sweet, Jesus is with me, fighting alongside.  He was always with me, in my Christmas prayers to give me strength.  Jesus gave me armor, for all kinds of battles, through winter prayer in Darien.