Spirit of the Snowflake 1954

Some of you may know how it is to be born lame.

Crippledness was promised me at birth yet diverted by heavy casts placed on spindly little infant's legs with which I uncoordinatedly bashed the noggins of anyone coming close to my crib including that of an older brother who unfortunately took it personally.  

From the age of two months until my ninth month of life, and with several illnesses in between, I was taken into the big city of Atlanta each month for larger casts to be put on. This was a hardship for working parents especially because travel wasn't as easy as it is today (well, with the exception of Homeland Security restrictions of late.)  

The reason I mention this is because the Christmas Season is known as a magical time--a time of miracles if one only believes, as they say. And it was just after the photograph you see here, age 4, that I wished so very hard for snowflakes--unforecasted as they were--to fall upon our Georgia Christmas, 1954. You could say I had my heart set on it.

Running to our front window beside the fragrant cedar Christmas tree, I asked my parents all through that Christmas Eve Day--will it snow? In hindsight I suppose  they must have been loathe to dash a five-year-old's hopes, but as the afternoon wore on, they became weary of my concerns and told me that, no, it wasn't going to snow.

Remember when no was not enough to dampen your fondest hopes?

And so around dinnertime--or suppertime, as we called it--I ran back to the window once more before dark and looked up into the sky...and there was the first snowflake meandering its way onto the grass my father loved to tend so carefully. Then another and...you get the picture...it began to snow in earnest as I excitedly called my parents to the window to see what I had known would be there all along.

Well, the snow only lasted into the next day which is usual in the Southeast if we get any flakes at all, but it sure made me a happy Santa Child in 1954. Even the hot and pesky hightop shoes I had to wear since the casts were removed couldn't dampen my spirit with such a strong and rewarded belief in snowflakes!

And besides, I had skipped everywhere I went ever since my legs were released from their casted prisons.

Then synchronicitously at age 19, while living in Atlanta and attending art school, I accompanied a  friend I'd made at work who was newly divorced and with a one-year-old who had foot problems.

As we motored downtown that Saturday little did I know I was about to be reacquainted with the same Dr. Kite who had repaired my legs and feet eighteen years before.

When little Philip's exam was over, I timidly told Dr. Kite we had met before, and why.

With a, "follow me," he led us down a hallway--no one else was there because the kindly silver-haired doctor had returned to his office on a Saturday to help out a working mother--he unlocked a door to a roomful of file cabinets from floor to ceiling.

Soon locating my file, he had me take off my shoes and walk down the hall and back.

"I see your parents didn't bring you for your last appointment," he said. "I would've put the casts back on."

Being shy, I had no particular answer for the good doctor (remember when we could call them good doctors with confidence?), so we left his office with Philip's next appointment time scheduled, and with some food for thought on my mental plate to chew upon later.

Through the years, I've realized that my parents did the best they knew how--taking me to an out-of-town doctor who offered hope to a child who would've been up-the-creek without a normal life if he hadn't had some idea what to do for her problem.

And the last missed appointment?

As soon as the casts were removed, I began to walk--no developmental crawling stage for little ole' baby me. I was released and soon--seriously--skipping everywhere I went. Why, I was known for it!

Not sure if you can tell from this photo, but I could barely sit still for the portrait, with white hightops laced-up tight, a tricyle waiting for me back home, and a redbud tree within my climbing-sights. 

Now not knowing me then, you might have put it down to my being a wiggly squirmer yet I assure you that the joy of movement--of running and skipping, jumping rope, trike and bike riding, and the tree-climbing I loved so well--were so very close to being just a dream for a little girl who believed in snowflakes where none were promised, and who knew a guardian angel when she saw one--silver-haired and kindly...and most happily a skip-enabler, too!