A Winter's Kiss.(Kevin Hughes) The snow was falling in big flakes, there was no wind. Sounds were muffled and distant. The streets were deserted with only two deep ruts to guide any driver with the unfortunate luck of being driven out into the middle of a snowstorm. It wasn’t quite a white out like they describe on the Weather Channel, but let’s just say a snowman in the front yard was not visible from a curb or sidewalk more than twenty feet away. The Christmas lights on doors, windows, and bushes, looked like so many smudged blurs on an Expressionist painting. The colors of the bulbs weren’t bright and shiny, oh no, they were more like pastel smudges on a white background. The real sharp glitter was the sparkle off of the snow. A sparkle that would make you squint after a while.

Yet two brave souls were walking in the now over a foot deep snow…sometimes using the ruts on the deserted streets, other times walking on freshly plowed sidewalks. Sidewalks where the older more stubborn generation was fighting a losing battle with the snow to keep their sidewalks and driveways clear. It was a bit easier to walk on the cleared sidewalks than on the streets that were plowed hours ago…but to the two figures making their way home like two gray pillars in a sea of milky white…it didn’t really matter.

They were young…and in love.

He was a Senior in High School, she was a Sophomore. They had been together for more than three years- which, in Junior High School and High School time scales, was a Lifetime. They had been close friends for years before they acknowledged that their fourth and fifth grade crush on each other, had turned first into a strong friendship…the kind that last forever. By the end of Middle School it was apparent that puppy love had outgrown its leash. They had moved onto that stage where the words: “True Love” and “First Love” were bandied about by everyone who knew them.

They walked in the snow, muted laughter sprung from them every now and then. Other times, soft companionable silences lingered allowing only the soft crunch of snow to try and rise above the muted landscape. Her left hand held his right hand. Her mitten safely stuffed in one pocket, his glove, stored in a jacket pocket, freeing up their hands to cuddle- skin on skin. Cold skin, even the warmth of True Love can’t fight Mother Nature for long. She would curl her finger in to a small ball, and he would take his much larger hand and wrap around her fingers, making a cocoon of safe warmth for their hearts to hang out in.

After a while, even that didn’t stop Mother Nature from freezing up two young hands. I think it was Mother Nature’s way of getting the young couple to cement their love in a more sharing way. And it worked.

He stooped and brought her face to face, so close- that their noses bumped up against one another’s as they gazed into wide open eyes. He would unzip his jacket so she could slide her frozen hand under both his jacket and shirt. Ice cold fingers buried themselves into young warm skin. Instantly he got both goose pimples and filled with the love of service and sacrifice. For he was serving a need, and sacrificing his warmth for the girl he loved. And there is no warmer feeling in the world…no matter how cold the hand.

She had made sure that he had slipped his glove back on his own frozen hand. She knew from both experience (and habit) that once she had warmed his hand…and his heart, she would take the glove off of his frozen finger and curl her warm hand over his cold one. For a moment, she too would get the flurry of goose pimples across her body, shiver once or twice, and then feel her heart melt right there in the cold. His glove would go back into a jacket pocket, and their hands would drop back into a friendly embrace. Then they would turn and walk some more in the snow and cold.

Finally, when even Young Love, True Love isn’t enough to stave off the cold anymore, they would head to her house. Thoughts of hot chocolate and squeezing together on the couch, buried under her favorite blanket - under the watchful eyes of her Mother and Father, while watching a Holiday Classic dominated those last few moments in the snow. Until, under the glow of a single yellow bulb just beside the top of the side door to the house, the last bit of Magic happened.

Outside the yellow glow of the tiny bulb by the door, whatever was out in the dark and snowy night was invisible. The yellow arc of the light extended only a few feet in a semi circle from the door. Close enough to see, but far enough away to be unseen, they turned for the last ritual of their snow and cold covered walk: The winter kiss.

They didn’t need to ask each other, or make stumbling awkward movements of their nose, or necks to get into the proper kissing position. No, this was a ritual kiss as old as Winter time. Their bodies, hands, lips and noses knew the routine by heart…two hearts actually. She leaned back and up, and he leaned down and in. Cold lips met cold lips that sent a tingle up their young bodies. In a few more moments, tongues, warm exploring tongues, would reach out gently to search for the taste of each other. It wasn’t ever a sloppy kiss, or one promising even more heat of a different kind…no it was the gentle discovering kind of kiss that leaves a taste of warm embers of happiness and not the red hot glow of the coals of passion.

It was a Winter’s kiss and always ended when a familiar voice would come out from the yellow arc and a half open door held by one hand and a woman in a thick robe:

“Honey. Is that you? Is he with you? Then both of you get in hear before you freeze to death!”

Her voice wasn’t scolding at all. It was the voice of a woman who knew what was happening just outside the circle of falling snow she could see. She knew how important those snowy frozen lipped kisses were. It made her smile at both her daughter …and later, at her husband as they shared a look of their own. Snow Kisses are not limited by age at all.

They broke apart their kiss, with just one last quick peck of full lips, and answered:

“Right here Mom! Any hot chocolate?”

Her Mother, still standing the cold draft holding the door half open, watched as the two figures stepped out of the shadows.

“Of course. And marshmallows too, but get in her before you catch a cold. You too (acknowledging the welcome to her daughter’s boyfriend) get in here and get warm. And where is your hat silly boy?”

Three smiles lit up the night. He never wore a hat, and it was an inside joke that brought the three of them together. His smile grew. He squeezed his girlfriends hands, and she laughed when her Mother screeched as her boyfriend put his ungloved hand on her bare forearm

“Don’t touch me! You are frozen like a popsicle. Sit down while I get your hot chocolate going.”

She winked at the young boy, who would soon be a young man. She knew that the laughter from all of them as she screeched made the moment safe for them all. It was a signal that he could stay until he was warm again. After the Movie she would offer to have her husband drive him home. She knew, from long experience, he would say:

“No Thank you. It isn’t that far to my house.”

She would give her daughter and him a few moments alone in the kitchen as he bundled back up to venture outside again. She knew there were a few kisses and soft words that needed to be said. Then she would cough a few times before rounding the corner into the kitchen. She would shoo the young boy out the door and join in her Daughter command:

“You call us when you get home, let us know you are safe!”

He would laugh:

“Don’t I always?”

And with that…he was gone.

They would close the door. She would hug her daughter for a moment or two. Then she would wonder what he thinks about on that long cold walk home. Part of her knew from the girl she used to be twenty five years earlier what he was thinking:

“Winter kisses are so nice.”

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