14 years later

14 years ago I'm not sure if y'all remember North Carolina had a big ole snow. One that blanketed the state. That very same year Hurricane Fran hit... but that's a different story. Anyway, we were all buried in snow, the best snow to fall in 8 years and the first big snow I really remember not being afraid I would die from sledding. My brother and I shared a red plastic sled. One that looked new due to lack of use from living in a southern state. SO, the snow started to fall that January night and we looked out the window in all kinds of anticipation for school to be cancelled and fun to begin. The next morning when we woke up we found the best sledding snow we had ever known. It had a thin layer of sleet on top making it slicker than a bald tire semi on a wet road. My daddy took to the mountain behind the house with the tractor and began to pack down a nice slope on the field for us to go down. All my cousins walked across the field and we walked up the mountain to sled. Due to the fact a rudder sled was useless on this kind of snow, Kevin and I were the only ones to have a sled that seemed to slide right. Here we were six kids ranging from ages 16-3, a dog, 3 adults, one red plastic sled, a huge hill (seriously it's like a mtn!), and a day to slide! We all took turns on the sled. Going down and walking up. Of course Abbie and Matt were young so they went down with one of us older ones, or sometimes we would go down in pairs, but the fun way to go down was solo on your belly. Just you, the sled, the snow, the speed, and the cold. It was great. Except for the 5-7 minute walk back up the mountain, the wait for your turn, and the cold hitting your bones. After about an hour we see the tractor waiting at the bottom of the mountain with the front end loader intact and Paw Paw in the heated cab. He became our own personal ski lift. We would sled down, get in the front of the loader, and he would haul us back up the mountain to drop the sled off for the next person.
14 years later. I'm away. Not on the farm. Not playing with my cousins playing in the snow. I so badly want to go home, but even home is changing. We are all getting older. We are all having our ever changing lives. Can you have roots and wings? I don't know. Today brought back a good memory yet at the same time brought me to tears... again. I miss Paw Paw.