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Mary snowshoeing -- Photo by Marilyn Ries
WHEN THE SPIRIT MOVES YOU It was Rip Van Winkle meets “Haunted House,” all because a friend innocently invited me to go snowshoeing on a beautiful, blue-sky, sunny winter day. As I huffed my way along the trail, I gazed wistfully through the trees at the Loup Loup Ski Hill, where John and I spent many a winter day, downhill skiing. Even in my prime, I was at best a low-intermediate skier. John was better by far, more passionate and graceful. He loved the freedom and speed of pointing his skis straight down the mountain. Once, when we were skiing in Canada, we rode the chairlift with a retired farmer who was celebrating his 70th birthday. I expected that John would still be skiing at 70 and beyond. So much for expectations. After John’s stroke (at age 61), I didn’t even consider skiing. I couldn’t imagine anything that would hurt him more than for me to go off for a day of skiing while he sat in his wheelchair. After he died, I thought a little about returning to the hill. But I couldn’t convince myself that it would be any fun without him. That day of snowshoeing, though, enjoying crisp mountain air, glowing from exercise, I was convinced I had to at least trying skiing again. The next day. Before I lost my nerve. It was snowing when I pulled into the Loup Loup parking lot. A wet, spring snow. That was the Rip Van Winkle part. John and I had last skied “the Loup” in March 1993. The snow’d been wet and slow that day, so we’d put our skis away, looking forward to the next season, which – for us – never came. Fast forward seventeen years. Much has changed on our little ski hill. A chair lift has replaced the old poma tow that had made the ride uphill seem more strenuous than the skiing back down. But you can’t change the lay of the land, so I knew which runs I dared try. After warming up on the junior hill, I boarded the chairlift. Funny, how ghosts show up where you least expect them. I guess that’s why they startle people so. There are memories of John in our home and in the newspaper that was once his pride. But never his ghost. Not even at the cemetery. And he’d never ridden that particular chairlift, yet there was his ghost, jauntily swinging his skis. John never could sit still on chairlifts, always eager to get to the top. The chairs can accommodate four skiers at a time, but it was a slow day. So it was just the ghost and me, crying. Necessary tears, comforting tears. The ghost stood with me at the top of the hill for a moment, characteristically stomping his skis to clear off excess snow, and then he was off. I didn’t see him again as I worked my way down the hill. I never could keep up with John on skis. Not a ghost of a chance.
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