The Reindeer Keeper

Did you ever look at a photo and wish you could remember that moment; remember what lead up to it and what everyone was saying and who took the photo and what happened after the photo had been taken and life continued on? I had all those questions and more after receiving the attached photo from a cousin. That’s me sitting on a horse behind my Uncle Paddy-my cousin’s father. My older brother is sitting on the other horse. I have no recol lection of that day. But I do know if my Uncle Paddy was involved, it would have been a fun day. Most in the community knew him as owner of a shoe store. I knew him as an uncle who was a kid at heart. Uncle Paddy was the one who built us kids rafts out of telephone poles so we could go off on adventures on a creek that ran along behind our homes. Uncle Paddy was the one who helped my cousin and I set up a tent behind his house so we could camp out on occasion over summer vacations. Of course he was also the one who loved to scare us later on ...

In the movie, Dr. Zhivago-set during the turbulence of the Russian Revolution-one particular scene reminds me of my grandfather's barn in Winter. I didn't pick up on that when I read the book. It hit me after seeing the movie for the 2nd time. That specific scene shows the doctor and his lover, Lara, entering an abandoned home complete with chandeliers. It took my breath away. Not because it was obvious how elaborate that place must have been but rather-it was because the rooms were full of snow and shimmering, sparkling ice crystals and frost resembling lace-just like my grandfather's barn in winter-itself abandoned-not by a revolution of any sort but instead by a farmer and his wife aging-then moving. While we played around that farm and its fields and pastures every season-to me, Winter was the most breathtaking. Void of any animals, the barn stood silent-except for the wind etching its way through cracks and holes in the slabs of weather...