Is That When You Kissed Her?

Is That When You Kissed Her?

Papa walked with his two young grandchildren down the path from the cabin to the frozen pond. The girls, aged four and six and a half years, the half was very important, were dressed warmly in layers. Those layers were topped with ribbed down jackets. Their hands were covered with mittens decorated with pictures of kittens, on a string that ran from one mitten through the arms of their jackets to the other mittens to keep them from getting lost by excitable children. Boots allowed them to safely tromp through the snow, and warm knitted caps pulled down over their ears covered their heads.

Reaching the pond, PaPa found a log to sit on overlooking the pond. Vicki quickly made a snowball and threw it at her little sister who screamed happily as the snowball shattered into a flurry of white bits against her jacket. Neesy tried to form a snowball but couldn't, so she grabbed a double handful of loose snow and threw it toward her older sister. The fact that the snow disintegrated and fell to the ground did not diminish her enjoyment.

The two girls, noticing that PaPa was sitting, went to him. "PaPa, is this where you met G'aMa? Is this where you saw her skating?"

"Yes it is."

"Tell us, PaPa, tell us about you and G'aMa."

"Okay. But you have to promise to sit and listen, and not run off before I finish. Can you do that?"

Vicki looked sternly at her little sister passing on a silent message. "Yes we can," and they sat down, Vicki on the log beside her grandfather and Neesy on a rock in front of him.

He started. "When I was young, not as young as you, but when I was much younger and in college, for Christmas break I joined my family here for a family holiday. We had a cabin further around the pond than where we are staying now. Your grandmother, who was a freshman at Boston University, was here with her family in another cabin.

"It was really cold that winter, a bit colder that it is now, and the pond was frozen solid, solid enough for skating. At night the park area with picnic tables was lit up with multi-colored Christmas lights and one of the trees was decorated with red, blue, and green lights and ornaments. It was very Christmassy.

"I went over to add an ornament to the tree, and while I was on tiptoe to place it as high as I could, I slipped on some ice and on my way to the ground fell against a girl who was about to put her ornament on the tree. I apologized while dusting snow off my knees, and noticed that the girl I had fallen into was very pretty."

"Is that when you kissed her?"

"No. In fact she had hardly noticed me. Anyway, she added her ornament to the tree, and went on down to the pond. I next saw her when she was skating, and it was then that I saw how really pretty she was, not just her face but her whole personality. She just glowed out on the ice, and I just stood awestruck on the bank of the pond watching her. I was not a skater, and I never even owned a pair of skates, but your grandmother looked like she had been born with them.

"I saw that she was about to come off the ice, so I went to the drink stand and bought two cups of mulled wine, hoping she would accept one. As she was removing her skates, I approached her and offered her the hot drink saying, 'The least I can do after stumbling into you is to buy you a hot drink.'. She looked at me appraisingly, smiled, and said 'Thank you. That's very nice.’ and took the cup I offered her. "

" Is that when you kissed her?" this time from Neesy.

"No. We were still strangers. Strangers don't kiss each other. What we did was sit at a picnic table and talk. About our schools, about where we lived, about our families, about our hopes for the future. We talked for hours although it felt like minutes. That's what it's like when you are with someone you really like.

"We talked until they started turning off the lights. We both stood up to leave, and I said, 'Will I see you again?' and she said 'Yes.'

" Is that when you kissed her? " they both chimed.

" Yes."