Life is a journey. Words are the map!

A heavy blanket of snow covered the ground, illuminating the road with monochromatic hues of deep winter.  Color, Alina mused.  It was something her life had missed for months now.  As she dragged the sled through the drifts, she carefully avoided trees felled by the weight of the snow.  She knew she needed to get to the cabin quickly, a challenge heightened by dark fall and snowfall.  She shivered, recognizing her will to succeed was propelling her forward.  Forced to use her scarf to ensure the package was carefully tied to the sled, her neck and shoulders were exposed. She moved quickly as the flakes fell upon her face.  The blades of the sled left a trail behind her footsteps, and occasionally, she was forced to untangle her blonde curls from an unsuspecting branch or to kick a burst of snow off her boots. 

A quarter of a mile away, the cabin Alina was raised in sat perched near the banks of a frozen lake, serene and unfettered by the cold.  She could see the heat from the chimney had melted the snow along the pitch of the tin roof.  Inside, Alina’s mother, Annika, sat and stared into space, rocking herself to and fro with abrupt movements, completely unaware that Alina was gone or would soon return.  She had started rocking since her complete memory loss.  She also rubbed the seam of her blouse incessantly.  Annika was like a pendulum clock in constant motion, an outward demonstration of her own will to survive. 

As Annika rocked, Alina’s father bustled in the kitchen, trying to heat dinner.  It was now very difficult to feed his wife, and he was anxious for Alina’s return.  While 80 years had been kind to him in terms of how own health, his wife’s Alzheimer’s tried his patience on every level, especially when she refused to eat.  Moving back to the family cabin to allow her to die with dignity had proven to be a brutal decision. No one had expected the coldest winter on record.  The roads to the main outlet were closed; ready firewood was an enormous chore; life by propane was a distant cry from the comforts of modern electricity. Still, it had been Annika’s wish to die here, and he and Alina were bound to it.

Alina trudged through the last thick of trees from the road to the cabin.  When the door opened, she fell into the cabin, covetous for warm air.  Her father quickly embraced her and exclaimed, “Thank God you’re okay.” 

Annika, however, never changed her pace; never uttered a sound; never turned her head.  Alzheimer’s had muted her life, and all that remained was a visible shell of a once-intuitive, intelligent, and selfless individual. Alina had not heard her mother speak in months.  At times, it was hard to hear her mother’s inner voice over the white noise of terminal illness. The last words Alina could recall hearing her mother say were “oh my” as she gazed at the dogwoods in the fullness of Spring, shades of pink and white, their delicate blooms pointing toward a sky of perfect blue. Alina had felt what her mother saw at that moment — the color of Spring radiated from her heart like a prism. Now, as her mother faced her final weeks or days, Alina wanted to somehow recreate that radiance despite the dead cold of a bitter winter and the unforgiving storm of human frailty. 

Alina and her father put away the dinner dishes with lingering dismay at Annika’s disinterest in food.  Her father put another log on the fire as Annika bounced back and forth in her rocking chair. He stared at the package, which Alina had transported by sled over a mile through dense snow.  He looked intently at Alina.

 “Do you think this will work?” he prodded. 

 “What have we got to lose, Dad?” Alina answered. 

 Alina carefully opened the package, meticulously stuffed with protective paper.  Beneath it all was the object she had worked so hard to bring to the cabin.  She raised a life-sized baby doll into the air, admiring it as though it were quite real.  The doll had been her grandmother’s doll and then her mother’s doll, and then her doll.  Named Alice after her great-great-grandmother, the doll had been fed and changed as many times as any real baby. Time and use had worn Alice’s cheeks and hands as bare as her clothing. 

Alina carefully laid the baby in her mother’s lap, expecting some type of acknowledgment.  There was none.  Instead, there was the still quietness of what felt like an empty heart in an empty room. Annika did not wince. Alina and her father glanced at each other with a shattered blankness. Their plan had failed!

It was time for bed. Winter nights in the cabin brought fierce winds that howled across the lake with purpose.  The wind was a lullaby.  They carefully tucked Annika into her bunk and then turned themselves in. Hours later, Alina was awakened by a familiar sound.  The light of dawn had only begun to stream through the cabin windows.  She thought at first the sound was the wind, but the tone was distinctly human.  She turned her head so that neither ear was muffled by her pillow. An unmistakably melodic sound emerged.

“Hush-a-bye, don't you cry,    Go to sleepy little baby.    When you wake, you shall have,    All the pretty little horses.”

“Daddy, are you awake?” Alina whispered loudly.

“Yes,” sweetie,” he whispered in reply. 

 They both eased into the cabin’s den, and there sat Annika with Alice cradled in her arms. Alice had become real again in the hearts and imaginations of all who treasured her.  Annika sang the words to the lullaby with astute accuracy, as Alina smiled. Color had returned to their world, if but for a moment, and hope was born that Annika’s final days would be spent doing what she had done so well her entire life — tirelessly caring for the ones she loved.