Paula

You can’t ski without a little bit of faith – faith that somehow you can survive flying at the speed of a car with the benefit of a few sticks. And I can picture you rolling your eyes every time I bring up that word, but I never told you that you taught me what it means.

My mamma (your nonna who you’re named after) trained me to ski too, so now you know who to blame for all those squat drills. “You are either skiing, or falling. There is nothing else” was her motto, and no, she did not appreciate my Yoda impersonations. But as strict as her lessons were, and as lonely as I felt when she ignored my falls, she showed me how to blind everything but my body and path in a grey fog, even after I stopped falling. Soon my confidence swelled, and skiing became my art, such that with the slightest bend of my knees I would sweep fine calligraphy on to the earth.

You were a faller, Paula . I used to dress you in jackets as if we were jumping out of a plane, which we may as well have, given I could always locate you from your screams. But every time I suggested that we stop, you would tap dance away on your little skis, shouting “I like being happy-scared!”, and I knew that we were the same blood.

On the bad day, it was hearing your laughter that made me look. Because how do you turn away from such a unique joy, when those you love, love your joys, as if your life evolved into symmetry. When I turned back and saw the tree, it was too late, and all I could hear was my mother’s voice.

It has been twelve years, Paula, and we haven’t talked about it. We talk around it, with a secret language that has invaded us, like the way that you spend weeks every year researching new wheelchairs, the excuses you gave to stay in town for university, and even our fights and desperate bargains, everything is a feeble scrape at this.

If I ever resented you, it is only because I once resented being a parent. This is our coldest of truths, because to be a parent is to be happy-scared forever, if we are lucky. To not know whether tomorrow will hold laughter, or screams, and to look towards it regardless. And in this way, faith and love are the same definition, that I can surrender to something bigger than myself.

You saved me from the fog, Paula. So I’m thankful for what happened, and everything that has ever happened, because we are still here. And therefore, if I could go back, I will look at you again.