by Nicki Orser

Created on: May 31, 2008   Last Updated: March 13, 2009

Waiting for the Thaw

The snow fell lightly on and off throughout the day. The fishing holes had been carved out early, leaving ice chunks like diamonds scattered around our feet. My three sistersTrudy, Jenny, and Katieand I had messed with the lines several times already that morning so we could watch our dad sprint across the ice, hoping to reel in a giant pike, only to realize that once again, he had been tricked.

But this time, the ice began to crack.

It began silently, spider-webbing from the most recently drilled hole, but moved quickly. By the time he turned around, he was trapped. The slick bottoms of his boots pounded against the cracking ice as he ran. He made it about a yard before his leg crashed through the surface, drenching him up to his right thigh. Like a prehistoric running man, found thawing in a glacier, he froze momentarily. Elbows and knees bent, breath billowing in front of his stubble-covered face, he slogged his way toward shore.

The wind howling through the leafless trees was punctuated by the cracking whip of the broken ice. We stood frozen as my father struggled onto the snow-covered beach. Soaking, shaking, he made his way to the campfire.

"Fritz," my mom ran to him with one of the red-checkered sleeping bags.

Cursing quietly, he peeled off his wet jeans and long johns, until he was down to nothing but his Fruit of the Looms and long flannel shirt. Wrapped in the blanket, he sat on a rock and swore some more when he realized the front of his shirt had also been drenched and the L&Ms in his pocket were now unsmokeable.

This was the last trip I remember taking with my dad before he got sick. First the flu, then pneumonia, then countless doctor visits to try and pinpoint the cause of his fatigue. Stop smoking, start exercising, try these pain pills. Years of needle sticks and chest X-rays, and it seemed they were no closer to finding the cause of his illness, webbing its way through his immune system like the cracking ice that landed him in the lake years before.

By my twentieth birthday, I had all but forgotten the skinny, farm boy frame of my younger dad and had gotten used to the doughy, swollen, drugged-up body that enveloped my sick one. Oxygen tanks trailing behind the folding wheelchair, my father smiled up at me as my mother pushed him through the underwear department at Sears where I had found a job as a salesclerk. My parents had decided on a whim to drive from Nebraska to Colorado to buy lottery tickets and surprised me with

• 1
• 2
• 3
• ...
• 8
• Next Page >>