Snowbaby Sophie arrived in the middle of a snowstorm and celebrated her first birthday surrounded by the massive clean-up surrounding this year’s deluge of snow and ice. Roadside hedges hung heavy with ice on the shady side and sprang up free on the sunny side as we traveled north to her first birthday party. The further north we went, the greater the damage. Ice had stripped limbs off whole groves of trees and stood reduced them to a cluster of black pointy poles.
We passed hundreds of white, electric repair trucks: a bucket truck supporting one repair man working on one pole – sometimes 10 in a row.
All those trucks fascinated two-year-old Elijah who traveled north with us. He loves trucks. We spent a lot of time talking about his new cardboard, picture book of trucks. It has been a while since I explained that many pictures of trucks. If he didn’t get an education, I did.
Fortunately, we generally travel with a basket of food. We needed it. Fast food places, gas stations and convenience shops stood silent, unlit, examples of what “no electric services” looks like up close and personal.
After work, Eli’s parents followed us in their van, and called us in astonishment, “You do not realize just how dark it is, until there is absolutely no electricity anywhere.”
They did not play the game of “find the best gas price.” They bought at the first open station and made supper plans around the limitations in choices with electrical outage.
In St. Louis, the winter’s storm brought snow. Shovels and adjusted thermostats resolved most storm discomforts.
The baby greeted us with her hands waving high, carefully lifting one foot after another as she walked over to welcome us – a big grin of accomplishment displayed her still sprouting teeth.
“You didn’t tell me that she was she’s walking!” I said.
“She started last week. We thought we would surprise you when you came,” my son said.
The baby’s momma knocked herself out to make it a special birthday party. She made a doubly large cake for guests. It had raspberry filling covered in white and accented with orange, green and pink frosting. For the baby she made a smaller cake to have all to herself.
The cake tasted delicious, the guests brought lots of gifts and filled the house.
Tucked in her high chair, with her little cake in front of her, the child looked inquisitively at the lit candle. Her mother helped her blow it out then adjusted the cake in front of the baby. She looked at the cake tentatively, bent her head forward and tried to bite into it. She could not quite get her mouth around the little cake, so she picked it up and tried to put it all in her mouth and got frosting on her nose. A hunk came off the side as the paparazzi captured memories.
She looked at all the people surrounding her, gave a wisp of a smile and returned to puzzling out what to do with that thing on her feeding tray.
As the baby sorted out her cake, her momma pulled out a dozen cupcakes with a lit candle in each to hand to the visiting cousins and children. They blew out candles and began eating while the adults accepted slices of the big cake from the platter.
Sophie’s older boy cousins helped open her gifts. They pulled off ribbons, loosened the paper and inspected the toys, books and clothes. Sitting cheerfully on her father’s lap through the whole process, she laughed, grabbed, pulled, tasted and shook her gifts as a multitude of digital cameras captured the moment.
It was a great winter party.
The next day before we left, my husband, leaned over the table, looked right at the child and sang a slow version of “Happy Birthday” to her. Wide-eyed, she stared back, listening. Then her face broke out with a huge cherubic, grin as she leaned towards him chortling and kicking her legs energetically, totally pleased to be the center of his attention.
Truly, a smile with enough light and energy to carry us all the way home.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. She can be reached by e-mail at joanh@everybody.org.)