Kindness Changes Everything

After the Storm

BY RACHEL NEUMANN

I WAS TWENTY AND LIVING IN BURLINGTON, Vermont, when my aunt Ricky died in California. She was fifty years old, though she insisted she was forty-eight. Ricky had been my mother’s only sister, my childhood confidante, and next-door neighbor. Now she was gone, and I saw her absence everywhere.

In Vermont that winter, a hard, white blanket enveloped every available surface and absorbed every emotion, sharp edge, and color. For me, a Californian with nothing warmer than a thin fleece and borrowed boots, the snow was inconceivable.

A few weeks after Ricky died, I walked the twenty minutes to the grocery store. Heavy snow was falling, a blizzard brewing. On my way back home, the storm gathered force and snow flew in all directions. Ice flakes stuck to my lashes and cheeks. I brought the paper bag of groceries up as a shield and, as I did, the bag ripped and the groceries fell to the street.