Paper Snowflakes

The late winter snow fell outside our window like the paper in our hands, white and weightless in nimble fingers. Paper pieces had covered the floor of your room, creating our own little snow storm. Winter was your favorite season, with those cold winds, the ones that make you feel weightless like you could blow away if you stand on your toes. And the snow that fell from the sky and into the ground like cherry flowers in springtime. You waited for winter every year as if it was a rocketship about to take you to another world.

Mom said she never knew where your obsession with winter had come from, but she always thought is was because you were born on the winter solstice. She's told us that the moon burning bright that night and the light had brought life to where the snow had blanketed the ground beneath her feet. Everything about you reminded me of the fourth season. The blue in your eyes is the icy pond on which we skate each year, bottomless and full of fun. Your hugs are the hot cocoa we drink after a long day of snowball fights, enveloping and warm. Your laugh is the coat I pull over my shoulders to keep the cold demons at bay.

The printer paper was creased into squares, the folds were natural to your pale hands. The scissors you used to shape them glided along the edges like a swan floating atop a lake. Your lap had been covered in the little paper snippets. You always had this look of marvel on your face after you opened each snowflake. Each one you made was different, like the real ones outside our window.

You taught me how to make snowflakes, but mine were never as good. The edges a bit frayed, the creases a bit bent, I knew I could probably never do it like you. But like the big sibling you were, where I saw mistakes you saw greatness. You would always put mine up on your bedroom ceiling, where they hung like the stars above the Earth.

After winter days like this, I would go to bed wishing that these memories of you would last forever. But you were the winter snowflakes, and you'd be gone by morning.

The sun had been bright that fateful morning. I had woken up you when the moon had yawned and fell into bed. You had promised to take me skating on the lake near our house, the one that so resembled your eyes. Pieces of paper had been sticking out of your hair like leaves and your arms were a morning sun stretched big and wide.

Mom waved to us from the door. She had warned us to be careful but we didn't pay attention. If we did, we would have noticed the melted icicles and overwhelming amount of grass peeking through the snow. We followed the path to the lake, it wasn't far and we knew it well, it's imprint were tracks in freshly fallen snow in our minds.

Our skates, old and frayed, were known as well as the backs of our hands. When we were skating, the grins on our faces were so big and goofy, someone could have mistaken us for cartoon characters. Your smile lit up the sky and your teeth were the color of freshly fallen snow.
It was then when I felt that sinking feeling in my stomach. The feeling you get when you eat raw cookie dough or when you spin around in circles. Like something is wrong. I ignored it then, but I knew I shouldn't have.

Beneath your smile my eyes caught on the ice below your feet. The ice was a spider web weaving it's intricate pattern of broken glass. I had called out to you screaming my voice loud and shrill deafening in its wake. But it was no use. I was frozen as I saw you drop into the icy waters below your feet as you fell deeper and deeper into a bottomless black void. I took one look into the lake, and I knew you had left me behind in a world of misery.

We held your funeral in the spring. The flowers had begun to bloom again but you had cast a dark veil over our lives, draping over everything. I remember all the words of condolences we had gotten at the event, but nothing could lift that veil.

Winter was long gone, but I found myself coming to the lake often, basking in the light of the warm afternoon sun. Sitting at the edge of it, watching the ripples of the pond made me think of you. I spent days wishing you would rise from the lake like a phoenix from its ashes but you never did. The pond still rippled, the trees grew leaves and the snow had melted. You we truly gone and there was nothing I could do to bring you back.

That night, I opened the door to your room, as quiet and soundless as a mouse, and I sat top you bed just like the night before you died. Sitting there I felt something prick my thigh, short and quick like a needle. I lifted my leg to see little pieces of paper. Then I looked up to see all the snowflakes you had hung atop your head and I remembered all the fun times we had every winter. I felt your laugh echo on the walls as a great release fell from my eyes. My eyes darted to the paper and scissors on your desk and knew what I had to do.