The Poinsettias for My Grandmas

Late afternoon Christmas Eve, snow flakes began fluttering down from the sky to add to the snow pushed off the road. We'd made it over the Continental Divide and were into the rolling hill-after-hill section of Montana, heading toward Grandma's in North Dakota. Dad had been driving for twenty-two hours straight from Seattle with only one or two more hours to go. My brother and sister and I sang carols until Dad asked, "Quiet, please."

It was my first year in college and I'd never visited my relatives during Christmas. School meant few chances to go in the future so when Mom and Dad said they were going, I signed on. A trip mid year in college was risky. The first day of the quarter is more important than any other-that's when the reading list, assignments, test and other due dates are passed out. Miss the first day and you were playing catch up from then on. Mom and Dad were sure we'd get back.

What decided me was the chance to pay Grandma back for all her checks she'd sent with a Christmas gift. I couldn't afford to send flowers from the florist and I wasn't sure they'd get through with North Dakota weather. But I could buy her a pot of poinsettias. We tucked them safely in back with the coats and luggage.

With the snow flurry, the back seat of the Dodge became chilly. The winds outside seemed to make it past the insulation into our bones. My brother and sister and I fought over blankets and readjusted day bags but it never got warm enough. A lonely semi traveled in the other direction, but for all practical purposes, we were alone.

That's when the car's heater stopped working. My dad, peering through the increasing salting of snow, nudged my mom. "Dolores, see if you can do something about the windshield."

My mom broke off a snore, dug under the seat and found a towel. She wiped the fog off the inside of the windshield. Five minutes later, she scrubbed again.

My dad had both hands on the steering wheel, gripping it like he had the weight of all our lives on his shoulders. Patches of white appeared on the road and we drove through them, slipping occasionally despite the studded tires.

I discovered I'd lost visibility. The windows were covered with a thin sheet of frost. "Can I have the ice scraper?"

Mom tossed it back and I scraped out a circle to witness the increasing storm. For five minutes or more I observed the landscape. Snow mesmerized me as it dropped. Each snowflake wanted my full attention until it smacked into the road.

Mom tapped me on the shoulder. "Sheri, I need that ice scraper back." The area my dad looked through to drive was reduced to a foot wide circle where the air from the defroster was still warm enough to make a dent in the frost. "Don't you think we better stop, George?"

"Beats me, Dolores, glad, but everything's closed. We're almost there. We'll have to tough it out."

The silence in the car after this matched the increased snowfall and sideways winds. My mom clung to the door handle until my dad asked, "Can you see the side of the road? I can't."

Mom said, "You're okay." But the ditch had disappeared and only occasionally near a freeway off ramp did a yellow line appear.

Snow blew in thick sheets across the road the way my cat attacked under a blanket, wiggling with hidden claws. Darkness glazed the sky bruised. The car's lights shone dimly. Within a half hour a pack was built on the roadway. It grew darker as the full force of the blizzard made itself known like a cold hungry God.

We made it downtown Dickinson with relief. Christmas lights shone out at intervals. More traffic, a car or two was out still. We turned toward New England.

Five minutes later, my mom said, "Isn't that Madonna's?" Madonna was her sister.

Dad dropped one hand onto his lap, almost in defeat. Grandma lived twenty miles further but the snow blocked the roads. "Yeah, want to stop?"

Mom said, "I think we better. I don't think they'd mind."

He found the driveway and braked. I couldn't see anything in the snow peppered pitch black outside. Then coming from the outline of the house, quicker than you could believe, a bright light and the sound of a motor. The side door unlatched and my kid sister and brother jumped out and disappeared into the night along with my mother. Shivering in the silence, I waited. "Dad, I need to get my coat out of the trunk."

He rested unmoving until they unloaded off the snowmobile, and then he shut off the motor and said, "C'mon, they're coming back." I jumped out and we both stomped our way to the rear of the car. He stuck the key in and the trunk swung up. The inside light shone on my grandmas Christmas gift. Bright red petals inside the foil wrapped pot. One moment the poinsetta was luscious and hothouse full, the next second, all poinsetta petals fell off like sheets of paper jewels, leaving a stick with the end curled and black. The disastrous end of my Christmas gift.

My mouth gaped and for a minute I wanted to cry, then my dad laughed ha, ha, ha with the laugh of Santa having delivered. "Damn, Sheri, that's the funniest thing I ever seen. We carried those all this way and...." He burst into laughter again.

You know, I forgave him at that moment. He released all his pent up worry even as I shrugged on my coat and hopped aboard the snowmobile. Until then, I had expected to stomp my way through the snow and cold, never expecting the snowmobile. Next thing I knew, wind blasted my ears. Ice needled my face until we vroomed up to the kitchen door and I shuffled inside to hugs.

My aunt dug into her canned beef and made us all a stew. I kept wondering why my cousins weren't mad. We had a tradition of opening presents on Christmas Eve and they were just set to start. Instead, they ended up cooking and cleaning and hauling our bags off the snowmobile.

Joy rang through the house. Eventually we all gathered around the tree and unwrapped one Christmas gift. Then we all hustled off to bed, my cousin sharing her top bunk bed with me and we talked late into the night.

The snow blizzard delayed our entire trip. We were a day or more off schedule already and my mom didn't want to skip visiting her mom. I ended up staying with my grandma instead of giving her a plant and my other grandmother waited another ten years to see me. We spent New Year's Eve at a party at the Elk's after a dinner with my great aunt who made a traditional dinner with seven sweets and seven sours for just us three. Single, I danced with the old ladies and watched everyone link arms and fall down on the floor during the butterfly dance at midnight.

A half-dozen calls netted me a ticket on the train but depleted my scanty savings, the only vehicle for the return price. Then I went to my aunt and uncles until the train came to bring me home. But even that was late; I sat in the train station for six hours while they righted an engine that had slid off the snowy, icy tracks up the line. Then thirty hours later I arrived in Seattle after the last of my classes had ended, exhausted.

Yet, it remains the trip that taught the lesson--grab life's rubies however they fall. Accept them for what they are because next instance, they'll be gone. Only the laughter and the memory of love every remains afterwards.