Cædmon Comma

First Snow

My Son,

Tonight when you awoke crying, I picked you up and held you and rocked you, and tried to buy a few more minutes of rest for your mother. I parted the curtains in your room and showed you the results of our first, hard snow. We gazed upon the winter that covered our house, and our world.

Your mother loves winter. She thinks the snow is beautiful, and looks forward to seeing the whiteness hang from the pines. It is nothing for her to clap at the first sign of snow or dance in the midst of storm.

While I thought about the beauty of your mother and the inevitability of the seasons, you quietly gnawed on my shoulder looking for nourishment, as if my shoulder would somehow lactate with enough chewing. Someday, you will reach such a state of intellectual brilliance, that you will realize that no shoulder will ever lactate. But, by that time, you will have seen twenty-eight winters and life upon life.

I pray that you will learn much from your mother. I pray that someday you will be able to dance in a world of snow, fueled by the knowledge of a not so distant season of bloom.

Don't take this world seriously, my son. It will only make you cold.


I already see your strength,
Dad