It was cold that winter. The ground frozen hard, and the wind biting. Every day I drove the circuit to the preschool, dropping off the four-year-old, while my mind turned over again and again, working the same ruts of despair.
It was cold that winter when I finally said no. No I can’t live with you anymore. The winter when I finally told the truth. The winter I said, I want a divorce.
Winter always brings me to my knees. The endless gray skies. The cold wind. Every day a trial. I think it took the biting cold, the relentless hardening of the earth, the storm after storm to hollow me out to the point where the truth just fell out of me. It could never have happened in summer’s soft weather. It takes the cold to turn up the pressure cooker inside.
It was cold that winter when he said he had a gun. That morning when I said I would call 911. But didn’t.
It was cold, and I cried and shook in the shower, and then gathered my little boy and took him to the Jesus preschool.
It will always be the morning when he said he had a gun. It will always be the night when I said I can’t do this. When I lay in the dark after crying for hours and listened to the owl calling from the trees, waiting for the sun to rise.
It is February, and the memories are bearing down on me. This winter isn’t very cold, but if it were, I might go outside, say thanks, and kiss the frozen ground.
It’s funny, no matter how well you know someone, still, there are things hidden in our hearts. I knew your circumstances, the gun, the cold, the despair, the decision to say no. But the words bleeding your pain in the shower and crying for hours, those are sacred places. It takes courage to write them. I’m glad you did.