Remembering the Harshness of Winter

This has been the coldest and snowiest winter since 1995-96. That was my first winter alone. My husband had gotten sick and was in a nursing home. I spent alot of time outside that winter. We heated our home with a wood and coal stove. Clennie had always taken care of keeping the fire,. carrying in the wood and coal, and taking out the ashes. I fixed it at night before I went to bed.

It was something I never had to take care of...that is until he got sick. It was a very difficult time for me on many levels. My life had totally changed because of my husband's illness. We'd been married for 25 years when he got sick.

I visited him everyday, sitting with him for an hour or longer just to get him to take a bite of food or a drink of Ensure. The aides didn't have the time to do that for him, they had 19 other patients to take care of. I felt like it was my responsibility to care for him. I was all he had and he needed me to be there for him when he was sick. I couldn't imagine NOT being there for him in his time of need. That's the way we were raised, you do whatever you can to help your loved ones.

I spent 8 hours at my dull, mind-numbing job each day, then I went up to the hospital and spent 1-2 hours with him. I would have stayed longer, but I had to get home to look about the fire. If I didn't keep a fire going, my water would freeze.

I developed a system for carrying in the buckets of coal. On the weekend, I'd go out and dig out around Clennie's little 4-wheel drive truck so I could get out. I'd take about 8 of those white 5 gallon buckets out to the coal pile. I'd fill up the bucket about 1/2 to 2/3's full, then carry them back to the end of my porch. I couldn't carry a full bucket of coal because I'd hurt my back helping care for Clennie at the hospital. It have me trouble for several months. The man I bought wood from would stack as much of it as he could on the porch, then stack the rest of it beside the porch. Then he'd cover the wood with the plastic tarps I'd bought.

On the weekends, after I'd filled and carried the buckets of coal to the house, I placed them in between the edge of my porch and my stack of wood. Everything was close at hand when I came home from the hospital. I bought those little starter logs at Wally World. I got to where I could get a fire started with just half of a log. They were a life-saver for me.

I had to carry in enough wood and coal to start up the fire, plus what I'd needed to fix the fire in the morning too. I couldn't carry in as much wood either, so I had to make extra trips to get enough in. Then I set to rekindling or building a fire. You had to shake all the ashes out of the grate with a metal handle. I have asthma, so as you can imagine it bothered me all winter. After shaking down the ashes, I had to carry out the ash pan and empty it. I usually dumped them along side the road or where I parked.

I was outside all the time. It was a snowy, cold and miserable winter. I got discouraged alot, but I couldn't give in to my dispair. I often thought of my two grandmothers as I worked to carry in wood and coal. I just had one winter to get through, while they lived with no water or electricity, had to carry in wood & coal everyday, and had several children to raise. I had it easy compared to them.

We had 2 snows in January and February 1996 where we got 2 feet of snow. Beckley and Princeton, to the south of where I live got 3 feet. Hundreds of people were without power for about a week and a half. The roof of a grocery store collapsed under the weight of the snow.

It was the longest winter of my life. But finally, the first promise of spring arrived. My crocuses started to bloom. My heart soared. The days got longer and the temperature gradually warmed. Then one day when I came home from work, I noticed a daffodil had bloomed.

With the arrival of spring, came the realization my husband was not going to be coming home. It difficult for me, but it was the reality of the situation, of my life. I was lucky enough to learn several valuable life lessons early on in his illness. Those lessons helped prepare me for his inevitable decline and eventual death.

The weather this winter reminds of that first winter alone. Now I'm struggling mobility issues and the death of a dear friend. I don't have to worry about keeping warm or getting out in the winter weather anymore. Now I have time for my writing, knitting and reading. I can sit and watch it snow, sip a cup of herbal cinnamon tea and read. It isn't what I envisioned all those years ago before my husband got sick. I never dreamed I would have such a leisurely existence as I struggled to survive that first winter living alone.