Warm

So, I've returned to the hairdresser from whence I came. After spending the last 7 years trying to find one I liked closer to where we live now, I gave up this past summer and went back to my old haunt.

It's a long way to go for a haircut, but aside from being very satisfied with my stylist, the salon is right around the corner from the cemetery.

And so on my way home from getting a new 'do yesterday, I stopped in to retrieve Thomas' Christmas wreath.

I should have known better, really. We're in a deep freeze here - bone chillingly so. The snow, a mostly untouched blanket flecked with diamonds gleaming in the late afternoon sun, was probably close to two feet deep in the cemetery.

I parked, climbed over the snowbank and plodded my way to Thomas, putting my feet in the faint indents of the tracks left by the last person who trekked his way.

Of course, when I got there I couldn't move the wreath. Couldn't budge it at all. It's frozen solid deep in the earth where I placed it in November. So it'll be there for a while, I'm afraid. Snowmen, ribbons and all.

It was too cold to linger. I thought, briefly, about digging the snow off his plaque, but I couldn't bear the wet gloves and snow up my sleeves. Not yesterday. Not in that cold.

So instead, I kissed my gloved hand, like always, and pressed it into the snow above where he lies.

I pulled my hand away and looked at the print; the image of my hand marking the spot where my baby boy lies. And I smiled.

I know it's still there today. It was clear, bright and cold again today. Too cold for the snow to have melted my hand print, and too clear for more snow to have covered it.

It's still there, hovering above my boy.

And it makes me so happy.