Yesterday I bundled up without regard for fashion or vanity to spend some time in the snow with the puppy (11 months old today and pretty big). He’s been getting neglected while I have centered my energies around nursing my husband as he recovers from knee replacement surgery. So I klunked around the yard with the dog, decked in somebody’s old snow pants, wool socks, Columbia boots, Irish sweater, a red, hand-me-down, granny winter jacket, with thick gloves and a fitted stocking cap.

Once I felt that Cody (the big puppy) had had sufficient attention and snow romping, I resumed my Florence Nightingale role. Still dressed in my duds, I went out to the garage freezer to fetch the two frozen terrycloth tube bags filled with corn kernels that my husband and I had constructed for the purpose of icing his knee and leg while he rehabbed. Those bags turned out to be heavier than one would think. I slung them over my shoulders. As I trudged back into the house, I caught my reflection in the garage window and, for a brief second, I saw my Dad the way he used to look coming up the back steps at the end of a winter construction workday in his signature combat boots and his cuffeed stocking cap shrunk back on his head so that his ears were sticking out from under it.

“Hi” I said.

It was nice to see him.