These quiet snow days make me nostalgic for childhood. My siblings and I were very close, homeschooled, had nothing but time. We raised each other in a way. I have one brother. He is younger than me and I worried about him incessantly.
One night we bundled up and went outside. It started with a snowball, we rolled it as we walked. I pummeled him with routine and scripted questions, accusing him of vices, doing my motherly duty of watching over his soul. Now he is Joe; then he was Jojo.
"Jojo, are you addicted to drugs."
"No" he would respond, like usual. "I'm nine."
"Jojo, are you having pre-marital sex?"
"I don't know what that is".
"Well have you ever stolen anything"
"I don't think so, sister".
We almost made it around the entire block, no longer rolling but pushing a snowball twice our size. When we could push it no further we left it, at the end of a walkway, and ran home shrieking. The next morning, in the midst of a math lesson, we looked out the window to find the owner of that home using a pick axe to crumble that now frozen barricade.
Now a grown man he has stayed on the straight and narrow, be it my heavy hand, an internal moral compass, or simply common sense. He's everything I had hoped he would be and more. Much like that unmoveable snow mound we created together, he's hilarious, and grounded.
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