Ski Spirits

About a dozen years ago, I started to realize I was being followed.  Someone watching me from the periphery, skulking, floating like vapor, carefully hiding behind objects just over there.  At first, I was unperturbed – from what I could make out, my elusory chaperon was vaguely familiar.  He kept his distance and was nonthreatening.  Besides, I didn’t see him every day and he didn’t disrupt my daily routine.  I didn’t think about him too much back then.

On my last ski trip, things suddenly changed.  Gliding down the slope - gracefully I thought with good speed and form - I mishit a mogul and went airborne.  Suspended in silence, surly bonds slipped, my brief triumph over gravity allowed for a moment of reflection:  my return to earth was going to be severe.  And reality did not disappoint – I hit hard.  All of the air left my lungs for what had to be fifteen seconds.  Once I could breath again, I performed a quick inventory of moving parts, relieved to find that everything still worked. 

It was at that moment that my shadowy companion abandoned his hide-and-seek intrigue.  I saw him silhouetted on the snowy pitch thirty yards above me, a motionless skier, the essence of me but older, hands resting casually on his poles, dressed in baby-blue ski garb not much different than my own.  He gazed down at my splayed body, exhaled a soft sigh, and bowed his head in wistful recognition.  And then he was gone.

At first, I failed to connect my wraith’s appearance as the embodiment of my dissolving vitality.  Yes, my skiing days were behind me.  Sure, I had lost a step or two (okay, three) on the basketball floor.  I wasn’t quick anymore and I couldn’t keep up.  I know I added some weight, but I wasn’t in the habit of scrutinizing the image in the mirror. 

Acknowledging the scourge of these subtle changes, I became even more dedicated to my wife.  The kids were gone and all we had was each other.  We weren’t in the game anymore – at least, I wasn’t.  Long gone were the days when youthful good looks drew the fancy of female attention.  For better or worse, forswearing lines on the face and thinning hair, we know, gratefully, that we will sail to our destinations together.  

In her later years, my mother, an unrevealed saint that the Catholic Church failed to canonize, threw out a remark that I knew to be a premonition:  “Kevin, I’m an old lady now but I still think the same; I still have the same thoughts and interests, still laugh at the same things, as when I was twenty.  It’s strange to me that I’m so different on the outside now.”  I understand exactly Mom.

I see my ski companion more often and more clearly now.  As the years went by, he approached me boldly, whispering in my ear, slipping in and out of my body, reminding me of the things I can’t do anymore, reshaping my appearance like a skilled make-up artist.  Fine, I get it – our time comes with a harsh promise.  What’s left is to live with joy and love, contribute where we can and as desired, be good friends, and hope that we create fond memories in others that will prolong our stay a good while after our last days on earth.