When It Snows

I stare out the window, into the night. Even though it's dark I can see the snow, swirling as it falls to the ground. I miss you. It reminds me of you; the snow. It's cold, but welcoming. When it first falls it's beautiful, and sparkles in the moonlight like how you made me feel when you was with me. You made me feel beautiful and looked at me like I shone and sparkled and glinted like fresh snow in the night.

When you left, it was snowing. You walked down the porch steps and out of the light from my hallway, the snow swirling around you, as it made your bodies edges fade and blur until you was the snow and the snow was what made you.

You know, philosopher's say we're made from stardust? Well, you're made of snowflakes. And hot chocolate. And a hot fire. How I feel when I'm curled up on the sofa, in winter, reading a book. You're incredible. Yet oh so strange.

When we met, it was snowing. I was sitting in the café. You know, the café off of the corner of Murray Street? Where the Farthing twins used to make snow forts on the green opposite. I was drinking hot chocolate and then the café door opened and in you came with the snow following you like you were one and it couldn't bear to part from you. But it did, as you shut the door against it and shook it from your hair. You made your way to the counter, got a coffee (black, two sugars and a cinnamon stick, your favourite) and stood behind the chair on the opposite side of my table.

You said sorry and asked If you could sit there. It wasn't like it was the one seat in the whole place available you explained, you just wanted to the company. There was something in your smile I liked so I said yes, you could sit there. It wasn't as if I was saving it for anyone. So, you sat. And then we were talking. You made a comment about the weather and I replied with some little quip about how hell must be frozen other too and you were laughing and then we couldn't stop. We talked about the snow, snowmen, snowflakes, hot chocolates, books we read at Christmas, the Farthing twins' snowmen and whatever else we could think about.

When it came to the time you should be going you asked for my number and I gave you it. And that's how our winter romance started.

For that short time in December, we were joint at the hip. We did anything and everything together and the thing I remember most about our time together was how much laughter there was, and all the happiness. It was perfect. And magical.

But like the snow, our bond melted.

You had to leave after Christmas, you said. You were in the army and this was just a short break. You told me you adored me, kissed me and loved me. And then by January 1st you were gone. You left my house in the night, with me waving you off. It would be harder to leave if it was in the morning after waking up beside me, you said.

So you left. And I'm still missing you.

When I found out you had died, it was snowing. When your mother told me, outside in the park where the sky had only just started weeping snowflakes, I couldn't feel the snow in my hair, or the bite of the cold on my cheeks. All I could feel was the sense of wrong and nonononoitcan'tbetrue as my head spun. That night, I felt dead inside. You weren't coming back safely like you promised you would. You weren't coming back at all.

At your funeral, it was snowing. The coffin was lowered into the ground, as a priest said things you never agreed with but nodded along about because your father, who was so proud of his son the American hero, did. I couldn't help but look at the snowflakes on your coffin lid and think how the white against the black varnished wood, with the script spelling out your name on it, looked like how remembering you felt now. Cold, dark and dead. I felt so lost, as people came up to me and said I'm sorry I know you were close. As if that could explain our love! We may have only been together that one month but it meant the world to me. And we were in love, it doesn't matter how long we knew each other or how short that time was, when you're in love you can feel it. It feels like safe and warm and chilling and exciting and oh so happy. My time with you will always feel like the first snow of winter, beautiful and unexpected and so appreciated.

When I found out - seven months after the funeral, from your elder brother that you weren't actually declared as dead, but missing in action - it was snowing. I felt hope fill my heart for the first time in a long time. Then anger, because of after what I had been put through, there might still be hope and your mother hadn't made that hope clear to me. But mostly, I felt hopeful.

The months after that were hard. My hope was crushed again and again as every new month started, until it was nearly no longer there. When it went completely I mourned all over again.

A year to the day after we first met, it was snowing. I was in the café, the one where we first talked, where we first kissed and where eventually you told me you had to leave. I was sitting at our table, alone, when I heard a voice at the counter ask for a black coffee with two sugars and a cinnamon stick.

Our love, reminds me of snow. Because when it snows I think of you.