Story by Melanée Addison
I was five years old and had recently moved in with my family after living with my great-aunt Edna from infancy. The arrangement began as a matter of convenience when my mother started working full-time along with my father, and my sister and brothers all were in school. After a few years my parents decided that aunt Edna would continue to raise me, until while visiting them one day, I threw such a crying fit when it was time to leave, my mom decided it was best I stay.
Having been raised alone by Aunt Edna who had no children, I was excited to finally be part of a family structure where I’d have two brothers and a sister to do all kinds of fun things with. However, as time passed, I saw that my sudden arrival had caused quite an adjustment in the family routine. For this reason, my sister and brothers welcomed my coming the least. As teens with already established social agendas, they were convinced that having to spend an afternoon watching their little sister was the true meaning of capital punishment. For them, baby-sitting was hanging out with friends at the local drive-in theater and hiding me underneath a blanket while I watched horror movies that I wasn’t supposed to and most times wished I hadn’t.
Nevertheless, I anxiously waited for the day that my brothers and sister would play with me. Most times I was left alone in my room where I’d find constructive things to do like melting crayons on top of light bulbs and playing school with my imaginary friends secretly using the closet wall as a blackboard. Sometimes I’d hear laughter and music coming from my brother’s room and excitedly skip inside only to be shooed away and have the door closed in my face. Eventually I gave up my quest for sibling companionship and learned to be content with my toys and imaginary friends.
One winter morning I awakened early to discover that it had been snowing throughout the night. Even as I excitedly pressed my nose up against the window, watching the big fluffy flakes cascade down and imagined myself running freely through mounds of untouched snow, I knew from experience that I would most likely wind up staying in my room to discover yet another way to do nothing. While pondering this daunting outlook, I became aware of someone in the room with me. I turned from the window and saw my oldest brother, Billy standing in the doorway smiling at me with a twinkle in his eye. “Have you ever seen a snow angel before?” he asked with a secretive smile. “A snow angel?” I wondered, and immediately thought of the angels in the picture Bible Aunt Edna had given me. “No”, I answered. Billy continued smiling and with a mischievous wink said, “Hurry, get dressed and I’ll show you one.”
Jumping up, I got dressed with lightning speed and soon was experiencing what seemed like a dream moments earlier. Billy and I ran wildly through the snow laughing and screaming with delight, throwing snowballs at each other and rolling around in the powdery fluff. After playing for a while, Billy called me aside. “Watch this,” he said, as he lay in the snow and began flapping his arms and legs as if trying to take flight. As he got up, I stared with wide-eyed amazement. It looked just like an angel in the snow! Next, I made one and then we continued running all over the place creating snow angels until we were exhausted.
Back home, as we sat in the window warming up with hot cocoa and surveying our creations, I looked up adoringly at my big brother and realized that I had seen a snow angel before, after all.
