It was snowing this morning and might again tonight, but most of last week's snow and ice are just a nice memory.
When I was a kid we grew up with a family portrait of a little boy, from the Victorian era, Uncle Walter. He was my grandmother's uncle. He died young, at age five or six, I think. The popular family legend was that he was outside playing in the snow and he later that same day caught pneumonia and died. Somehow this morphed into "he died making angels in the snow." I'm sure my great grandmother was trying to romanticize a family tragedy, the loss of her beloved baby brother.
For years, I couldn't hear the phrase "angels in the snow" without thinking ruefully of Walter. But now the spell is broken, as I watch my daughter's pure joy and smile and realize that Walter must have also had a blast on that day so many years ago, making angels in the snow.
3 comments:
My grandmother lost her baby sister to pneumonia as well and I don't think she ever really got over losing her toddler sibling. She was always warning us that going outside with wet hair or no hat would mean we would catch a cold and die of pneumonia. Now certainly her baby sister was not taken out with wet hair before she died and the real culprit was the lack of antibiotics at the time. My grandmother also had an adopted brother whose parents both died in the influenza epidemic of 1918. No wonder she was fearful of illness. It's amazing to realize that penicillin was not discovered until 1928 and not widely available until WWII. So I always find the old wise tails and warnings very touching in some way. And I am very glad we live in a world where the common cold is no longer deadly and snow angels are just fun!
I think I meant wives tales not wise tails but it's a fun slip no? I have to come up with a definition or picture of what wise tails are!
I love that - wise wive tales or wives' wise tales or wise tails - any way it's really great!
I grew up with this story from my mom's side of the family and the Italian side of the family with an old wive's tale for any and every occasion, so I have a fond affection for them. I am grateful, for modern medicine too, but am growing wary of antibiotics after a certain age - that's another blog post,maybe...
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