Chariot of Wind

The wind is calm tonight, not like it was ten years ago when  it howled like a living animal caught in a trap. It whipped around, swirling the snow up and over curbs and cars. Tiny whirling dervishes made of miniscule flakes of frozen dust moved 3 or 4 feet at a time across the parking lot.  Much different than tonight, the air is composed, unusually comfortable for this time of year.

The wind is a chariot that comes to pick people up when it is time for them to return home. It often sweeps through where winter dresses in white. She is the unpretentious one, winter, you expect her to be cold. She is cursed for her beauty by many, but I prefer to let her quiet ways delight me. Even as the wind blew through the trees with a whistle, there was a stillness that let me breathe, while I waited.

Somehow he knew she would be by to pick him up, weeks before this. There were plans to be made for an upcoming event, but his eyes told me he knew he would not be there, then his voice confirmed it.

"I may not make it for that one" he whispered out.

I wonder if most people know ahead of time. That's one curiosity that will remain unanswered -- for now. The wind was the loudest portion of that night, and it carried on for hours, while they tried to revive him, transported him, and pronounced him. For hours it screamed and screeched outside the tall windowed walls. I was curious about where it was he was going, but I knew that he had gone the way he would have wanted to. Could I begrudge him that? Not hardly.

It's been ten years without his smile here to fill the room, or his witty banter to entertain us all, and yet his presence is here always in water coloured pictures on the wall, and wind whispers. I miss you Dad!